


The Rukongai Rebellion

by Surgeworks



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Original Character-Driven, Original Content-Driven
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2020-08-09 21:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 102,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20123881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Surgeworks/pseuds/Surgeworks
Summary: Ten years after the defeat of Yhwach, a rebellion planned out for centuries finally kicks off. The Rukongai citizens are rising up to defeat the military of the Seireitei and enforce their demands.





	1. Introduction

Hey there! I’d love to get right into the story, and I will, but in order to understand what’s going on, I need to establish a few facts, since there’s no reason for them to be mentioned in-story but you’ll still get confused otherwise.

  * This is post-Thousand Year Blood War and post-epilogue. We don’t acknowledge Babies Ever After in this house, but this is set in 2013, ten years after Yhwach’s defeat.

  * Squad Zero is dead, killed by Yhwach. We don’t acknowledge Can’t Fear Your Own World or Ichibei Hyosube’s bullshit powers in this house.

  * Captains that are dead include: Yamamoto, Komamura (functionally), Mayuri, and Jushiro. Lieutenants and seated officers that are dead are just Chojiro Sasakibe. Poor dude.

  * Renji is the captain of Squad 7 now, and Iba is his lieutenant. Akon is the captain of Squad 12. All other captaincy promotions as of the epilogue (Shunsui, Isane, Lisa, Rukia) remain consistent.

  * Mayuri was killed sometime after the war. It was a process that involved a fight with Uryu Ishida and betrayal by Akon, which I’ll go into in another fic. Akon has captained the Research Institute and Squad 12 for the past ten years.

  * Soul Reapers and Bankai:

    * Isane does not have bankai, and received her captaincy promotion after a review process and peer recommendation deemed her fit.

    * Momo has bankai. It’s talked about but not shown.

    * Renji has bankai, but not the Sōō version introduced in the last arc. He retains the old version, albeit still upgraded in performance.

    * Lisa does not have bankai, and got her captaincy through the same process as Isane.

    * Shuhei has his bankai, but it’s different from CFYOW’s version.

    * Toshiro’s bankai doesn’t work the way it did in the Gerard fight. It’s still been upgraded, though.

    * Kenpachi does not have bankai or shikai.

    * Akon has a bankai. Like Momo’s, it’s talked about but not shown.

    * Rukia has bankai, but neither her shikai nor her bankai work anything like the last arc showed.

  * Most importantly, **Ichigo is not in this fic. Neither are any of the Karakura gang.** I like to think my characters are smart, and smart characters don’t let Urahara tag Ichigo in. Moreover, this isn’t a matter Ichigo belongs in the thick of in the first place--he can't be at the fore of every fic, nor every matter concerning Soul Society.

  * As a final note, most original content of mine will be spelled with the proper accents above the letters, i.e. "kidō" the first time it is used, and then spelled without, i.e. "kido" all times thereafter to save time.

Proceed with caution, and enjoy!

This is a fanfiction I’ve worked on for quite some time, so I’m very proud of it, but it’s not going to be perfect. There’ll be as much extra info as I can pack in, and as with any standard Bleach fan, I had to work within the limits of both Kubo’s limited information and Google Translate’s limited ability. If I got a factoid wrong (that lies outside the points listed above) or a translated name or word doesn’t make sense, please correct me!


	2. Calm Before the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The official start of the work, we meet the leader of the rebellion.

There was a stillness in the air. The streets of the Rukongai, normally bustling or at least alive with a steady murmur of activity, were near silent. Only a few kids here and there were playing around.

It was a powerful silence, as Kazuo knew that it wasn’t local. The entire Rukon district, all eighty districts in all four cardinal directions, had become all but devoid of activity. It was the quietness before something big. The instant of nothing right before an explosion, or the sticky stagnation of the air before a huge storm began raging. If anyone from the Seireitei had cared to observe, they’d most likely be alarmed by just how few people were on the streets.

Not that anyone from the Seireitei would come today. Today was a special day for them. Ten years after the war with the Vandenreich and the death of Yhwach, the Gotei 13 and the Central 46 had finally seen fit to elect a new Squad Zero. Today was the inauguration; tomorrow, they’d be flying up to Soul Palace to begin their new jobs.

_A lot should be happening over there right now_, Kazuo thought, leaning forward on the bench. When was his partner going to return to him?

“Are you ready?”

Kazuo looked up, finding Kosuke sitting down next to him. Tall, broad, handsome, with vivid red hair and a neatly-trimmed goatee of the same color, and bright blue eyes staring out from a face stuck somewhere between the stages of youthfulness and rugged adultness. Kosuke never seemed to age, despite being even older than he was. Like himself, his arms were covered in zig-sagged black paint, but unlike himself, those arms were bared, the sleeves of his vest torn off.

“I’ve never been more ready.”

“Then go ahead and call the forces. This will be everyone’s last chance to back out.”

* * *

Kazuo stood on a slightly raised platform, a friend of his slightly to the side and behind him. He was at the very end of one of the massive underground chambers carved out underneath the Rukon district, something that had been prepared hundreds of years ago by former rebels, and re-inhabited and improved on by the current ones. Contained with him were roughly a thousand citizens of the districts, all wearing a variety of clothing, and all with a weapon strapped to their hips. Not zanpakuto, but short swords and knives. Their was a loud rumbling of chatter in the room until silence fell when he chanted a spell he had practiced many times before. It was the only one he could cast above the 30-level range of kidō, and it caused the markings on his arms to glow, and black energy to spread like roots from the square energy portal behind him. With Tenteikūra, he could address the rebels in the other hideouts as well as the ones in the room with him. A hand came upon his shoulder, and he felt Rokkaku transferring spirit energy to him and helping him stabilize the process. He raised his voice to be properly heard.

“All rebels, hear and understand me now, because this is the last day of life as you know it. Tomorrow, we strike, and you need to be ready.”

He took a deep breath, looking across the crowd. He saw fear, nervousness, and grim determination, pleased to find that the last one was the most frequent find.

“Although our assault is in good faith and our goal is siege, not destruction, we can’t expect that attitude to be returned. The Seireitei’s military force will most likely respond with varying amounts of lethal force according to their division’s practice. It’s highly possible a lot of you are going to die tomorrow. That’s how it was in the past, that’s how it is now. I’ve talked to you about this before. Are there any liabilities in this room who’d like this last chance to call off their part in the rebellion?"

Silence. Not just in the room, but in his mind, where the voices of his fellow rebellion leaders should have spoken, should anyone have left their chambers to leave the militia. This was expected; they’d been through this routine multiple times before, and the 4,500-odd rebels left to them were the ones remaining after nearly twice that had been whittled away with enough warnings about what their plan entailed. Kazuo continued.

“All of you have markers placed over your hearts. They’re linked up to the teleportation system set up by Nishio. When you’re in danger of dying or too wounded to continue, place your hand to the mark on your chest. You’ll be brought back to this room, where we’ll have an infirmary set up for you. All of the nurses are volunteers trained by Yukimoto Sawa, so you’re in good hands. With that said, as long as Phase One is in progress, I urge you to trust your auxiliary commanders and the rebellion leaders. We most likely will not be giving you orders beyond the general directives once we start our attack. Should we though, you’re to follow them to the letter and understand that nothing we tell you is something we failed to think about. With your cooperation, the Gotei 13 will fall tomorrow, and we’ll finally have the change we’ve needed for so long.”

Cheers erupted throughout the room, and Kazuo heard them echoing inside his head from the spells of the other rebellion leaders. He waited until they died down to continue.

“You’re now to file out and have your weapon checked by your hideout watch. You’ll be getting up early and engaging in battle shortly thereafter. Be safe, and get good rest, and connect with what loved ones you have. Goodnight.”

As they had been instructed to, the rebels began to leave the room through the exit off to his side, albeit with a lot of jumbling and pushing. There was a slight collision of bodies after a few seconds, knocking a few people to the floor, but no fights broke out like the last few times, though.

He felt a presence behind him, and took a deep breath. Over the Tenteikūra mental link, Kosuke would hear Kazuo speak.

“Our inside contact is back. Everything is ready.”


	3. It Begins

“I can’t believe you were able to set all this up. I don’t think there’s ever been a bigger party!”

“Oh, don’t give me all the credit, dear. I had a lot of help!”

Ane moved along the sidewalk, arm looped through that of a kind young nobleman she was leading towards dinner. The street was, in contrast to nearly every other part of the Seireitei, alive with activity, such that one had to raise their voice to be heard over the bustle and chatter. It was possibly the first block party to which the entire city had been invited—and almost certainly the first one that nearly the whole Seireitei populace had shown up to. When admission was only 1,000 kan—a single kan for each birthday Ane was celebrating—there was no way to not show up.

Lights and small fireworks lit up the street, and performers did dances and juggled. Games were being run at every corner, and it warmed her heart to see that many small children had come to have a good time. There were a fair few unseated soul reapers who were supervising in case fights broke out or thieves tried to pickpocket, as was all too likely to happen at any party, nevermind one so large. But not all of the faces were serious, or more frequently, disappointed that they couldn’t participate. A few were showing off kidō to assist in entertainment, and still others were holding arm wrestling matches and sumo matches in small rings while spectators cheered and made bets. Overall, the attitude in the air was unfailingly positive.

“C’mon dear, it’s this way.”

Food was a difficult thing to handle in this situation, and it was largely the reason for the admission fee, being easily the most expensive part. Unless you walked around with nails in your hands, feeding 15,000-odd people was an almost insurmountable task. To that end, food was being cooked and sold not only on the streets, but from the lower rooftops, where people were bottlenecked via ladders and stern-faced guards into getting their snacks safely, and without risk of theft. As the vendors ran out of their products, though, people filed into the more orderly and luxurious properties lining the street. Those that didn’t belong to the Kaneda family outright had been rented out from nearby nobles.

“This one’s with me, he’s already paid.” She said, when the tollman held out an arm for coin. Looking disgruntled, he allowed Ane and her guest inside the building. This one happened to be a manor, albeit a relatively small and modest one, and her own personal residence. They ascended the steps together, and her guards allowed them past into the front hall.

“And a right here...” she said, leading her charge off to an adjacent room. When she opened the door, they were standing in a den, on the opposite side of which was a door leading to the dining room. Although big, her two dining rooms could still only seat about twenty people each at the long tables, so guests were gathering in groups of twenty spaced throughout the manor. Ane had expressly allowed no more than a hundred guests at a time inside any building, so there were five assigned waiting rooms for each property.

Just as they walked in, she called over the low murmur in the room.

“Shojino! Is dinner ready yet?”

The door to the dining room swung open, and a butler answered.

“He’s got it coming out of the ovens now, ma’am. The last group has finished eating and filed out already.”

“Excellent!” Ane said cheerfully. “Well, in you go, everyone. You’ve got good food waiting!”

One by one, the guests, who she noticed were all upper class nobles with a rather stuffy air to them, strode inside the dining room. She followed at the back, watching them take their seats at her fine varnished wooden table, and stood in the doorway. Everyone looked around at the surrounding décor, from the silverware to the chandelier to the fine china cabinets in the corners of the room, appraising. Everyone knew the dining room was the one room in a house you never allowed to look anything but its best, especially for company, and especially for the wealthy beyond that. She didn’t have the most extravagant out there, but the fact that she’d once been the wife of one of the richest men in the Seireitei still stood out from every detail.

“Once your food is served, dig in. I’d love to let you stay, but remember: you’re not the only ones who are hungry! You have exactly forty-five minutes to eat your fill, and then the next group has to come in. Everyone understand?”

A murmur of agreement went around the table, and Ane beamed and clapped her hands together. “Lovely! Your servers will bring your food in within the minute.”

Ane retreated back into the den once all other doors had been closed, shutting the one she held tightly. A green flash of light bled from the room beyond into the den through the cracks between the wall and the door. When she opened it back up, the room was unchanged, with the exception that it was empty of people.

She strode back into the foyer, where another set of guests was being led in by another butler. She gave them a moment to admire her manor before clearing her throat to get their attention.

“Is that everyone? Good, good. Well, come on. You’re just in time, another group just finished eating and left. Follow me to the dining room.”

* * *

“…and shall have all powers as entailed by their positions.”

Shunsui watched the three captains bow their heads in response to his presentation. Kisuke Urahara, Yoruichi Shihoin, and Retsu Unohana—new leaders of Squad Zero as elected by the Central 46, per his recommendation. He was going to be sorry to see these three go, but there could be no doubt that they were the only ones fit to ascend to Soul Palace and oversee the Soul King. Once they stood up straight, there was clapping from the surrounding captaincy. Only Akon wasn’t present, being in his own offices over at the Twelfth Division to monitor the flight. Nanao was also here, as she refused to allow Shunsui to undertake anything dangerous, even so long after the war.

The clapping died down and, for a few moments, there was silence. “You two can go now.” he murmured to the members of Central 46 who stood to either side of him as inauguration officials. They strode out without another word, and Shunsui rolled up the scroll he’d read the proceedings from, sticking it inside a pocket of his kimono.

“Well, if there’s nothing else keeping us, I suggest you guys make use of that Oken. I’ll ride with you on the shuttle, just so I know—”

_BOOM!_

There was a tremendous crash from outside, as the Tenchūren struck the earth.

“—just so I know you’ve had a safe journey.” Shunsui said, motioning for the three new Zero Division captains to follow him.

“That was prompt.” Kisuke piped up as he fell into step behind the Captain Commander. “Guess it’s time to test out the new gizmos.”

"I'm coming too!" Nanao said, jogging forward to keep pace with the group. "I still don't feel good about this."

The white forest behind Sōkyoku Hill was beautiful, even with smoke pouring up from its depths that marked where the Tenchuren had landed. They strolled at a leisurely pace, and he hoped they were taking the opportunity for a last look at the place. From now on, their home was Soul Palace.

“I have to say I appreciate the shorter walk,” Unohana mentioned behind Shunsui, “but I still don’t understand why a new launch system had to be built. We used the Shiba Cannon last time, didn’t we?”

“It’s experiencing ‘technical difficulties’.” Yoruichi said. “Which must be pretty bad, because Kūkaku’s a master engineer, and it’s never been broken down for this long.”

“Someone else couldn’t assist? We do have our own master engineers who could help. One of them is walking right next to me.” Unohana replied.

“I could get it up and running again, but…” Kisuke said, and when Shunsui took a glance over his shoulder, he thought the man looked somewhat sour.

“He’s not allowed on the grounds.” Yoruichi clarified. “That’s why I was the one to guide Ichigo and his friends during the invasion thirteen years ago. He pissed Kukaku off personally the first time he tried to mess with it and, well, she has a very long memory. Akon could probably fix it too, but he gets nervous around explosives.”

“You would too,” came the voice of the man in question. They had arrived at the launch site. Several white-robed Twelfth Division officers were carrying the Tenchuren shuttle from its crash site, where it was soon to be attached to a rocket developed, rumor had it, from the modified bankai of one Soi Fon. Shunsui looked to his right, where he confirmed that Kisuke was looking particularly unhappy.

“You chose asking Soi Fon for help over asking Kukaku?” he asked incredulously.

“It helped that I was the one asking.” Yoruichi said, smiling brightly.

“If you four are ready?” came Akon’s voice again, and Shunsui looked over at the computer monitor stationed a safe distance away. The Tenchuren had been hooked up to its launch pad. “Get in the shuttle if so.”

Shunsui motioned for the three captains to move ahead of him, and joined them in the shuttle once they were all secure. He walked forward, looking back at Nanao, who despite maintaining her composure, was visibly sweating. He shared her discomfort, though he doubted it was for the same reason.

"Relax, I'm going to be fine."

"It's not easy to trust that if this thing explodes mid-flight, you'll just survive. Be safe." she answered.

He gave her a smile as he pulled the door closed, huffing due to the weight, and strapped in. The air changed once they were inside the surprisingly roomy vehicle, and several lights in the darkness came on. There was silence for a few moments while each person looked at another. Shunsui simply looked at his feet, observing the shadows cast by the lights. After what seemed like forever, there was a tremendous rumbling.

“Liftoff is always the worst.” Kisuke said.

A huge roar of power resounded from outside, and Unohana, who had the misfortune of having been seated closest to the rocket side, looked fairly annoyed. Kisuke, who was sitting furthest from it, gave a sheepish smile. Shunsui’s head was thrown back against the wall of the shuttle, where it remained no matter how hard he tried to pull it away, an act that caused Yoruichi to chuckle.

For ten minutes, there was only more silence, as it would be useless to try and talk over the sound of their travel anyway. He did hope Kukaku got her cannon up and running again soon. Though the launch from her cannon would’ve been twice as loud, the process of getting to Soul Palace once it happened was much quieter as he remembers it. Eventually, the roar sloped in volume, and the air pressure and g-force started to return to normal. After another five minutes, the door of the shuttle opened, and revealed the city of Soul Palace to them. Unhooking himself, Shunsui again motioned for the others to proceed ahead of him.

The three new captains of Squad Zero filed out, and stepped out onto the quiet stillness. Soul Palace had never been a welcoming place, but in the ten years since Yhwach had become the new lynchpin, it had always seemed just a little hostile. Yet, Shunsui followed them at a distance as they moved.

“Do we just...get started?” Kisuke asked, eyeing the nearest floating island.

“I guess so.” Yoruichi said.

“Captain Commander?” Unohana called back to him.

He remained some distance away, having stopped walking.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I’m just…thinking, is all.”

He was waiting. But, nothing was popping out at him. Walking forward a few steps, he joined the group again.

……………………

“Shunsui!”

_!!!_

Shunsui performed two flash steps in rapid succession. The first had been innoccuous; he was just rejoining the group from his position at the shuttle. The second was evasion, and right on time. The instant he had closed the distance between himself and the new Squad Zero, a trap had activated.

Shunsui had Katen Kyokotsu in hand, and observed what he now saw: once he’d crossed some sort of invisible line, spirit energy had erupted into place. A green-colored kido barrier, producing a low humming noise, now stood between himself and his co-captains. As he craned his neck, he saw that it appeared to encompass the area in a full sphere, but was only big enough to section off the main road, and none of the ancient halls or captains’ quarters, much less the throne room, was accessible past it.

“Damn…” he muttered.

“You knew this would happen?” Yoruichi said, approaching the barrier. He saw Kisuke place a hand on her shoulder, apparently in warning, but nothing happened when she touched the barrier.

“I had a bad feeling.” Shunsui said, the hairs on the back of his neck still standing up. “Had it all the way here, really, since before we started the ceremony and throughout the shuttle ride. Couldn’t describe it…”

“So you noticed it too?” Kisuke said, again eyeing the surround islands floating in the air. “The wall that ordinarily surrounds this place isn’t here. It had to have fallen past us while we were in the shuttle for us to not notice it coming down.”

“You three might want to get down.” he said. He watched the three of them descend into a crouch. He drew his right blade back across himself, preparing his favored spell.

“Hado #78: Zangerin!” he said. Highly condensed spirit energy flew forward as he swept his arm out, and with luck, it would slice the kido barrier in half.

A huge blast of light triggered where his attack met the green wall, and Shunsui blocked his face with his arm. Once the light faded, he lowered it and saw smoke rising from the energy field, but no gaps in it.

“I kind of figured that would happen.” he said, sighing nonetheless. “Since I was feeling so spooked today, I used my Kageokuri to project an image of myself that followed you three. The trap wasn’t fooled by it, I guess. Whoever built this thing really knows what they’re doing.”

“You should hurry back to the Seireitei, Shunsui.” Unohana said, approaching the field. “Between the three of us, this won’t present a challenge that will hold us for too long. If the wall has fallen from here, and a trap was laid for us, something big is happening on the surface. The Gotei 13 will need you.”

“I guess you’re right.” Shunsui said, head hung. It wasn’t everyday that four of the most capable people the Seireitei had to offer were hoodwinked like this. He turned on his heel, making his way back to the shuttle.

“Hang on--how will you get back down?” Kisuke asked. “The gates to the World of the Living haven’t worked since the original Squad Zero’s death.”

"The shuttle could've taken me back down." Shunsui said dryly, observing the mess within. He'd had his back turned for maybe two minutes, how had all of this happened? Surely it hadn't been damaged by the kido he'd used just now? But no, as he looked around, he saw panels torn out of the walls and wires everywhere. Someone was here, and working fast. Maybe the first task of the new Zero Division would be to meet them and ask them what their problem was.

“I’ll just have to take the stairs.”

* * *

“Hello? Can you all hear me?”

“Captain Akon? What’s the problem?”

Nanao was standing in the meeting hall where she had been waiting with the inaugurals five minutes ago, along with the captains. She had just returned, and had no sooner finished telling them that as far as she could see (unable to watch after the shuttle vanished from the pinprick in the sky it had become), the journey was safely carried out, when a holographic screen had appeared at the hall entrance, bearing the face of a very frazzled-looking scientist.

“The perimeter wall has descended and the shakonmaku is active! All four wall guards are currently engaged in battle!”

All four wall guards…? She’d known that bad feeling today was spot-on. Nanao could feel dread filling her as she calculated what that meant in her head. A large-scale attack on the Seireitei from all angles activated in the precise minute that a third of its strongest captains and allies would be away…? This had to be either Aizen’s or Yhwach’s handiwork. There were still some troublesome Quincies, but the Espada had been living peacefully in Las Noches for the last dozen or so years.

“Who the hell...” she muttered. She glanced over at Soi Fon, who was gritting her teeth. Nanao hesitated to give her the reigns, but hesitated just as much to take them herself. There was no designated interim Captain Commander if the active one should be indisposed or occupied.

“Try and contact Captain Kyoraku.” she heard barked at her from the stealth leader. “An attempt should at least be made.”

“Oh, right.” Nanao stammered. She felt the others in the room watching her as she performed the proper rituals, black markings appearing on her arm as she cast a telepathy spell. Before the Tenteikura could be completed, the sounds of destruction reached the meeting hall. They were faint, but powerful, and Nanao could tell what Akon was going to say before he said it.

“The walls have been destroyed at the four cardinal points! I repeat, the walls have been destroyed!”

“This is bad…” came Captain Rukia’s voice.

“Yeah, no shit.” came the answer from Captain Hirako.

“Everybody shut up!” Soi Fon said loudly, focusing the attention in the room on the slowly-forming transmitter ahead of Nanao, which displayed nothing but shimmering white, the equivalent of static. She should be moving right now, but she wanted to wait for orders first. Before she could try and get through by another means, she was pushed from the side, nearly bowled over. The large form of Kenpachi Zaraki had run past her, already headed out into the thick of things.

“Hey! Be careful!” she shouted.

“You fool, stop!” came an angry burst from Soi Fon.

“Nevermind him, just focus.” Renji said.

Nanao brushed herself off, and turned her attention back to the shimmering white transmission field.

……

“I got something!” Nanao called. “Captain, can you hear me?!”

There was a buzzing noise, and the lieutenant nearly fell over herself in her haste to find her soul phone from somewhere in her shihakushou. Once she had it in her hands, she put it up to her ear.

“Captain Kyoraku…?”

“_Put me on speaker, Nanao.”_

“…I—yes, I understand. One moment.”

She pressed the appropriate button, and everyone in the room could hear the voice of Captain Kyrokaku, though with actual static muffling it this time.

“_Tenteikura only works one-way, sweet Nanao.”_

“Sh-shut up!” The lieutenant said, going red in the face. “The Seireitei is under attack!”

“_I know that.”_ came her captain’s answer. _“Are you in the meeting hall? Have the captains already left?”_

“We’re still here.” came Renji’s loud voice, waving in her direction. Being the only one on video screen, Akon waved back sheepishly.

“_We need reports,”_ Kyoraku’s voice commanded, with a stronger volume that made everyone in the room stand up straighter._ “Somebody contact the Twelfth Division, I need all the details—”_

“I’m right here, too.” Akon said from behind his screen. “The details are that all four wall guards are currently unconscious, there are holes in the wall at all four cardinal points, and an energy field has activated at the block party in the north, trapping the civilians. Souls are streaming into the Seireitei by the hundreds! We need to move!”

“_You said an energy __field__?”_ came Kyoraku’s voice. _“Alright, listen up. Nanao, I want you and Captain Rukia to head to that block party in the north and investigate. The rest of the captains are to fan out to their respective Division grounds and combat the nearest threats as per usual. That said, I need four of you to render assistance. One captain will need to check on the Shin’o Academy, and another will need to check on the Kido Corps grounds. Both areas are to be evacuated if need be. Another two captains will need to stay in the area to help me out. __A trap’s been activated up here, too, and the shuttle has been sabotaged. I can get back down manually, but there’s still the matter of the 72 barriers between here and Soul Society. If I’m gonna be in time to help, someone’s gonna have to help me break them from the other side. The best place to do so is atop the Senzaikyu. Am I clear?”_

“Lisa and I will head for the Academy and the Kido Corps.” Kensei volunteered, and Lisa nodded after.

“Rose and I will stay here and work on busting those barriers.” Shinji followed up.

“_Then everyone head out.”_

The captains in the room all followed the instruction and moved out. Nanao barely kept up with their movements, but didn’t bother to leave just yet.

“_You still there, Nanao?”_

“Yes, Commander.”

“_It’s Shunsui, you know that. Don’t you go getting into anything dangerous, you hear?”_

“I don’t. When I’m in danger, it’s usually because I followed you.”

“_Then you have every reason to be absolutely fine today. I’ll be there soon.”_

“_Good, I’ll be waiting. Watch your back.”_

She clicked the phone shut, then sped after Rukia.


	4. West Gate

“I can hear them!”

Yumichika was trailing Ikkaku, who was always the first into a fight. Sometimes, when particularly bored, he could even race Zaraki towards an opponent. And indeed, Yumichika could hear thunderous footfalls and yells coming from the direction they were racing. That could only mean there were a lot of them, as it would otherwise be drowned out by the same thunderous footsteps and battle-hungry roars of the stream of squad Eleven officers behind him.

Ikkaku skidded into a left, turning a corner onto the main street, where Yumichika followed him and, seeing who was there to greet them, cursed.

“Oh _shit_.”

Speeding along towards them was a wave of people, all dressed in typical Rukon rags, and all wielding weapons of some sort. But there were so many of them, they could barely fit onto the street, and Yumichika couldn’t see the end of them. He leapt up onto a nearby rooftop and, observing, found that several hundred yards away, they were still pouring through the western gate without end.

“Damn Jidanbo…” he muttered. “Couldn’t even stop these guys? Whatever. Bloom, Fuji—”

Yumichika stopped short. Just before the wave of bodies could come up on Ikkaku, who already had his Hozukimaru drawn and ready, there was a burst of spiritual pressure from nearby. Roughly two streets away, two sources of intense power were signaling them. He looked down and met Ikkaku’s gaze. The other man was grinning.

“Now that’s more like it! Wouldn’t have enjoyed carving up a thousand pieces of fodder anyway!”

The lieutenant leapt up to join him, and Yumichika spared a glance down as the horde of rebels clashed head-on with Squad Eleven. They were so outnumbered, but he didn’t feel like it would matter much; normal Rukongai citizens like these wouldn’t present a challenge even three-to-one to his trained squadmates. So he turned on his heel and joined Ikkaku in leaping over the rooftops.

“Hey!”

Just as they converged on the pressure signatures, Yumichika spotted a lone stranger sprinting down the street some distance away. He turned to try and run after him, but a noise behind him caught his attention. Turning, Yumichika ducked as a huge object attached to a chain flew over his head. Sliding out from under the chain, he looked back over his shoulder. The stranger was gone, and he couldn’t detect a pressure from him. Where he’d been, a huge mace was sitting in a slight depression in the ground at the end of the chain. It was reeled back, and he stepped out of the way, looking back towards the offending party.

“Well...I guess we know who’ll be fighting whom.”

The strangers across from them had a very similar look to Ikkaku and himself. Not in their face or hair, or their clothing. More in the way one differed from the other. The first one, who stood to the fore, was tall and heavily built, muscles straining from underneath the uniform he was wearing. He could easily be mistaken for a member of the ninth division, as his top was a sleeveless shihakusho, exposing a series of odd zig-zag markings over his arms, but the lower half was covered by a white hakama of a design Yumichika couldn’t place. He was barefoot. His hair was a short gray buzz-cut, and if he looked closely, he could see the signs of a middle-aged face underneath the buoyant, Ikkaku-like energy radiating from him. The smile on his face told of a similar enjoyment of battle to come. It was him that was wielding the ball and chain.

A little ways behind him, the other stranger had a very odd look. Odd in a good way. He was very slender under the white robe and black sash he was wearing, and like the other, was barefoot and bore black zig-zagging lines over his arms. The outfit matched his shock of white hair, underneath which were a short nose and gaunt cheekbones, but a pleasant smile. The eyes caught his attention immediately—one was red, the other was a vivid green. He bore a short sword on his waist, but he hadn’t drawn it. The two met each other’s gazes, and the other man’s smile widened.

“Bloom, Fuji Kujaku.”

* * *

“Crush, Gegetsuburi!

“Hey, be careful!”

Izuru had had to duck to avoid getting caught in the chain of Omaeda’s flail. The other lieutenant had released his shikai and swung on the lone stranger blocking their path through the street. Omaeda was usually more cautious than this, so he must have come to the same conclusion that Izuru had. For there to be this many rebels attacking at once, to be traveling alone meant this was one of the stronger ones.

The man he was looking at was...well, he stuck out like a sore thumb. He was wearing a _very_ filthy and ragged shihakusho, sleeves torn off, over a white robe that had been torn at the waist, both open to expose a well-muscled chest. Barefoot, with saw-tooth zig-zag marks over his arms that Izuru thought he recognized. His hair was short and was slicked back halfway, the front spiked up, and was red as blood, with a neatly trimmed line of fuzz across the lower jaw to match, ending at a goatee. The guy was broad and built like a tank, but tall enough to balance out the bulk. The eyes were blue, and they lacked any murderous intent, at least as far as he could tell. Two weapons hung at the black sash at his waist, a wakizashi and a nodachi. Crashed into a wall on the man’s right was the mace end of Gegetsuburi, deflected with the back of his palm.

“Identify yourself!” Izuru shouted, holding out his sword in front of him. “Are you a traitor to the Gotei 13?”

“Well-met, you two.” the man said, as though Izuru hadn’t spoken. “Go ahead and get your shikai out, Izuru.”

“Wah—is this guy a soul reaper?” Omaeda asked. “How do you know him, Izuru?”

“He doesn’t, I just know who you two are.” came the man’s voice, light and cheerful, not at all the deep rumble expected. His hand went towards the nodachi at his hip, drawing it with practiced ease.

“_Surpass Earth and Rival Heaven,_”

_A release command...this guy really is a soul reaper, then_, he thought.

“_Akaib__ō__._”

* * *

“Not going to state a name?” Yumichika asked, swinging Fuji Kujaku in wide arcs, but never managing to hit the speedy bastard he was dueling. He still refused to draw his weapon, which was pissing him off.

“Nari. No last name.” the red-eyed man answered. He lunged with a fist and Yumi swiped, failing to hit before he reeled his arm back. He spun, attempting to land a kick with his momentum, but this ended badly—he felt his leg grabbed, and before he could yank it free, he’d been flung to the other side of the street, landing on his side and skidding to a halt just short of a wall.

“And that guy over there is Saneaki Maeda.”

Yumichika got up, dusting himself off, and spared a glance towards Ikkaku’s fight some three dozen yards away. The weapon choices were a bad matchup; the meteor hammer had a much longer reach than Hozukimaru, and much more weight and power behind it. He saw Ikkaku doing far more evasion than attacking, and from what he could tell, the weak points that opened up in this Saneaki’s defense never remained open long enough to hit with the polearm’s blade.

“Don’t think about helping him. You’ll have to beat me first.”

He looked back towards Nari, and got a surprise. The man’s face was different, and he instantly saw that the strange heterochromia he’d exhibited was no more. Both eyes were a deep red now.

“And there’s no way you’ll do that fighting me with so much of your strength held back.”

Yumichika discarded his response about the rudeness of intervening in Ikkaku’s fight. Whereas he had grown past the stubborn edges of pride that had kept him from fighting at full strength due to his division’s attitude towards combat, Ikkaku…well, he still had a ways to go. He still didn’t like releasing his bankai, even though everyone knew about it by now. But he wasn’t going to win his fight with just his shikai. And Nari probably knew that too, if he had already guessed Yumichika’s much more tightly-kept secret.

“_Split and deviate,_” he commanded, “_Ruri’Iro Kujaku._”

He swung before the vines were fully manifested, flinging them in the hopes that one would land before a good look at his true shikai could be gleaned. The blue vines crashed down, but he heard the tell-tale sound of flash step being used.

“You won’t get away that easily!” he yelled.

But stopping him was easier said than done. This ‘Nari’ was incredibly fast, and he hit much harder than his thin build would imply. Yumichika caught sight of him, trying to get away from the vines by sliding under them and running along the opposite wall. If he could just…

_Got him!_

He swiped his vines from three different angles, coming from each side and above and cutting him off from the direction he was heading.

“Hado #54: Haien!”

_What?_

The blast of purple flame struck the vines in Nari’s path, and Yumichika felt a shock in his arm as his shikai recoiled in pain, producing a hiss and an acrid smell. Nari had leapt through the gap created in Yumi’s offense, as the tendrils that had previously been ready to ensnare him were now burned away to ash, a line of it having formed across the ground where four of them had been disintegrated.

_Fire?_

Yumichika cursed himself. He used his shikai so rarely he’d never encountered anyone capable of combating it. It was plant-based, so of course it would burn easily. But even so, that he could react so quickly suggested some sort of foreknowledge. Had his secret been leaked?

“Bankai!”

Sparing a glance in Ikkaku’s direction was his undoing. With another burst of shunpo, Nari had gotten underneath his vines and hit him in the stomach with a strong knee. He doubled over in pain, only to get a fist straight to his face.

“Aaaugh!”

He landed on his back some distance away, scrambling to his feet. He heard another hiss, and realized another fire spell had struck more of his vines.

_Forget this, my full shikai isn’t working, and he’s just going to destroy it at this rate…_

_!_

He caught the second fist just in time. The smoke produced from his burned vines had hidden his enemy's flash step, nearly landing him in trouble a second time. Yumichika didn’t wait for a second attack, tossing his shikai to the side, and following up with his own fierce punch—an uppercut to the jaw.

He felt a surge of pride in the fact that his opponent went flying. His hakuda wasn’t as impressive as Ikkaku’s, but he was still the third strongest person of the Eleventh Division. He knew how to throw down.

_Clink-clunk._

“Hmm?”

Yumichika stepped forward while his opponent picked himself up off the ground. Something had come out of the man he’d knocked on his ass, and was now rolling towards him.

“I’ll just take that.”

Leaning down to pick it up, he realized it was Nari’s right eye. It was green again, and appeared to be visibly no different than a real eye. It wasn’t even cracked like a glass eye would be. He brought it closer to his face, seeing something seemingly mechanical flicking back and forth beneath the surface of the iris. As he watched, that iris turned again from green to red.

“Ouch!”

He dropped the eye suddenly, kicking it away. Small, but sharp spikes had sprouted from the eyeball’s sclera. It rolled back towards Nari, who was dusting himself off.

“Sorry,” his opponent said. “That hurt? It does come loose pretty often, so I’ve started keeping a poison in there.”

_What the hell?! What kind of dirty trickery is this? What sort of device is it, and what person is the bizarre sort of creative needed to design a false eye that poisons whoever just happens to pick it up?_

“You’re a nasty one, aren’t you?” he said bitterly, past gritted teeth and holding his right hand, where several small punctures in his palm were welling with blood.

“Nasty as they come.” Nari agreed. Yumichika saw him blow on his false eye, then put it to his face to press it back into his eye socket.

_Now’s my chance!_

He wasn’t chivalrous enough to let his opponent get comfy. He slid to the side and grabbed his shikai off the ground, letting it settle back into its dormant Fuji Kujaku state, and sprinted across the distance between them, preparing an overhead swing.

?!

Nari’s hand was still on his head, but was gripping something.

_Is he—is he pulling something out of his eye socket?!_

Yumichika’s wrist was grabbed before he could swing down and carve the man up. Shock kept him from pulling away in time.

“Aaagh!”

_It was a sword_, he realized. _This lunatic pulled a goddamn sword out of his eye socket! Does that mean the eye itself was his zanpakuto?_

Blood flew as Yumi stumbled back, slashed open from shoulder to waist. He staggered back onto one knee, dizzy from the sudden pain.

Dizzy? Wait, that wasn’t right…

He tried to bring his Fuji Kujaku back up, but didn’t block the subsequent slash in time—or from the right side. A second slash wound opened up, an exact mirror of the first one, and more pain flooded his senses. Nari had finally drawn the short sword at his waist.

Flash step took him backard several paces, but even then, he fell on his rear, holding his shikai out in front of him as if to deter another assault. Maybe it worked, because Nari was strolling forward calmly and had re-sheathed the short sword.

“You’ve been poisoned three times now.” he said. “Two doses from my zanpakuto, and another dose from the short sword. I was only supposed to hit you with that once I’d won my fight, because lieutenants and captains are _supposedly_ packing too much power to succumb to it without being beaten down first. But I think you’re pretty beaten down, don’t you?”

Yumichika coughed, and blood sprayed the ground from both his mouth and his wounds. Damn...he already couldn’t feel his right hand, which went limb and dropped his shotel blade to the ground. He flexed, and his arm still worked, though the fingers weren’t responding. That just left his left hand. He pulled the fingers on that one into a fist and drew back.

“Don’t talk like you’ve already won!”

He lunged, trying to get a haymaker in, but it was useless. He felt a foot connect with his face, and then he was flying backward, nose broken. The back of his head hit the ground, and he groaned.

“Yumichika!” he heard Ikkaku yell.

* * *

There was a crash as Akaibo, which had turned out to be a simple red bo staff, hit the ground with enough weight to crack the concrete under it. The stranger had fallen victim to the same power that so many others did when they tried to combat Wabisuke—after nine strikes, it should be somewhere in the range of a thousand pounds by now.

“Now, Omaeda!” Izuru yelled.

“_Huuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhhh!_”

For a moment, he’d been afraid there would be some trick. That the man would roll out of the way, or throw out a weapon or spell. It shouldn’t be so easy to defeat a guy so bold, but maybe it was arrogance, because Omaeda, leaping high over Izuru’s head, descended at the spot he’d stepped back from a second earlier, swinging Gegetsuburi as he went. With a tremendous burst of power, it connected, slamming down on the man’s head.

There was silence for a moment.

“Wh-what?”

“What’s wrong, Omaeda?”

But he saw, as he looked closer. Though the other man had bowed between the weight of Akaibo in his hand and Gegetsuburi atop his head, there was no splatter of blood and bone, nor any real injury. In fact, there was a hairline crack running through the surface of Omaeda’s mace.

Izuru watched as the man stood up, lifting the flail off the back of his head and letting it fall to the ground.

_Crack!_

“Uurgh!”

Izuru’s eyes widened, and he lunged. Faster than he could stop, the man had swung his staff at Omaeda’s leg, audibly breaking it, and swung in an arc, sending the other lieutenant flying past him and crashing into something he couldn’t see. He’d known it wouldn’t be so easy, and he used shunpo to make his strikes.

_One, two, three, four, fi—_

Four strikes, directly across the man’s chest, but his fifth had been interrupted. The blade of Wabisuke had been grabbed just under the hook in this stranger’s right hand. He tried to pull it free, but it didn’t budge. As he watched, the man set his bo staff to the side, dropping it straight up so that the end of it buried itself in the ground.

“That’s not a good idea.”

“_Oohuagh!_”

Izuru felt the man’s open palm connect with his face, and felt himself flying backwards, then floating. His vision went dark.

* * *

“Yumichika!”

This damn guy with the mace had had him so distracted, he hadn’t caught anything of Yumichika’s fight. Hard as it was to not stare at the lurid display of vines and flowers, he’d released his bankai. He was fine now, but Yumichika was out of the fight.

“Come on, you pieces’a shit! I can take you both down!”

There was a flash behind him, but he didn’t bother to move—the back blade of Ryūmon Hōzukimaru swung down to cover his lower back where the fresh opponent had been aiming, resulting in an ineffectual clang of steel.

He twisted on his heel to the left, swinging the guandao side of his bankai to swipe at the newcomer, but didn’t land his hit. Of course, his other opponent, Saneaki, swung his mace, thinking he was vulnerable. Ikkaku simply lifted the monk’s spade, blocking it and letting it fall to the ground where it was reeled in.

“So if I heard correct, you’re Nari, right?”

A manic grin was making his way onto his face. He was glad the new guy had attacked him, not only because it let him know he wasn’t interested in landing a killing blow on Yumichika, but because he felt an absolute thrill at fighting two strong opponents at once. This would’ve been boring otherwise.

There was a sound of shunpo, and the man who called himself such had joined Saneaki. Good, that made them an easier target. He swung with his monk’s spade, lunging forward for a powerful upward strike. His two opponents easily dodged, however.

“Are you really expecting to hit us with a weapon that big and slow?” Saneaki called from a rooftop up above. “You bankai’s fearsome, but it hasn’t increased your speed even a little.”

Ikkaku huffed. He could say that, but the fact was, he was running away. When their fight had first started, he’d been at a huge disadvantage, with a weapon too weak and with too narrow an attack line to deal with the powerful opposition he’d been presented with. His bankai had turned that situation on its head. That meteor hammer was never going to be able to stand up to Ryumon Hozukimaru.

“Yeah? You gotta be lucky plenty of times to keep avoiding me, though. Me, I only gotta be lucky _once_.”

It was no lie. He wouldn’t have released his bankai at all if he’d had any other choice, because a fight like this would be done with once he landed his first strike. But he’d take what he could get, and things might be a little more balanced if someone who could defeat Yumi of all people was getting involved.

Besides, Saneaki and Nari might’ve been faster than him, but it wasn’t by an overwhelming margin. It could easily be compensated for if he increased his range.

“Haaaaah! _Asahi_!”

He leapt up in the air, higher than the roof Saneaki was on, and let go of his guandao. From the monk’s spade, he swung the entirety of his bankai around himself, tripling the radius of attack. He grinned as he saw the other man’s eyes widen. The building was annihilated from the east end to the west, crumbling underneath Saneaki’s feet as he tried to scramble out of the way of the guandao.

“I gotcha now!”

The man was sent crashing to the ground, mace still amidst the wreckage, and Ikkaku descended, monk’s spade ready to crash down on him. But he turned his head to the side, seeing a red light oncoming, and was hit straight in the face by a kido spell.

He didn’t careen off-course, but he was knocked to the side, and his monk’s spade landed in the concrete at an angle, some three feet from his target’s head. He looked to his right, where the fireball had come from. It didn’t hurt much, but he was mildly annoyed.

“You know,” Nari said, “at first I thought your bankai was this dramatic change from the shikai form, but it’s not. It’s bigger, and wider, but you still wield it like the sansetsukon. At least, when you’re attacking.”

“So fuckin’ what if I do?! Quit analyzin’ me!”

He saw the white-robed man raise his hands to shoot more fireballs. In response, Ikkaku threw the monk’s spade over his top half, charging forward. The Shakkaho blasts came rapidly, but they exploded ineffectually against his weapon. With his guandao, he lunged, but again he missed as the man leapt back. He continued his assaults, but just barely missed each time, until finally the other put about twenty feet’s distance between them.

“When you’re defending, it’s different.” Nari continued. “Your big, heavy weapons protect you from both sides and behind. The only vulnerable area is the front, which is too easy to block from and puts your opponent in range of your weapons.”

Ikkaku squinted, wondering where the other guy was going with this. Yeah, that was about how his bankai worked, but he failed to see the winning strategy pulled from all the facts.

Then he moved to swing his monk’s spade, and he heard the tell-tale clinking and clanging of the enemy’s chain behind him, but didn’t bother looking over his shoulder. The mace bounced ineffectually off his back’s axe blade, but he was surprised to find where it was aiming. Nari jumped up and met the mace end with his foot, kicking it back towards Ikkaku. His eyes went wide as the huge metal ball landed an attack square in his chest, knocking him backward until his feet dug into concrete and he skidded to a halt.

“I’ll give ya credit for that one, it kinda hurt a little!” he yelled as the mace returned to its owner behind him. No, actually, he was winded a little. No cracked ribs yet, but that had still been a bitch of a hit, and sneaky too. Saneaki had attacked at the exact same time he had and aimed for the same target. That meant that he knew his only vulnerable point was when he launched attacks, so…

“Hya!”

Ikkaku jumped up, trying to land an overhead strike with his guandao on Nari. As he’d thought, the ball and chain went streaking underneath his left side at Nari too, but he was no idiot. This time, he swung early, and this time his guandao came down hard on the metal meteor.

_Crunch. Clang._

Now that was satisfying—the metal ball now lay in pieces after Nari had kicked it towards him, struck down. Only a small chunk remained attached to the chain’s end.

“That’s whatcha get for trying the same trick twice. Who’s dumber here, me, or you?” he asked, looking over his shoulder with a triumphant grin. The fight was his now.

Saneaki said nothing, only pulling the remnants of his shikai back. Nari, on the other hand, landed another hit with kido, this time with Sōkatsui, right in his face. Ikkaku spat out blue smoke.

“Damn it, will you quit pepperin’ me with those things?! Shut up and die!”

He turned on his heel, facing Saneaki again and turning his well-defended back against Nari, effectively ignoring him now. Standing some ten yards away, the former was swinging his flail in circles, though it didn’t have quite the same effect now that it was just a chunk of broken metal. Ikkaku lifted his guandao and monk’s spade. He didn’t know what other tactics could be left to the man with a ruined shikai, but he’d had a nasty surprise once, he didn’t need to repeat it. These two were sly.

The flail was swung towards his left shoulder, and he allowed it to clink harmlessly off his bankai’s left side. Nari was behind him, would he be trying at another strike from his rear? An instant passed, and he heard a thud, and the same weapon was now flying underneath his right side. Saneaki lunged, collecting both ends of the chain in his hands, but Ikkaku pressed his right foot down it, pinning it. For a moment, the two made eye contact.

“_Don’t fuckin’ underestimate me, kiddo._”

Ikkaku lurched; his foot had been taken out from under him, and he was now moving, gigantic set of blades and all, dragged by the chain wrapped tight around his back. Saneaki swung him in a circle, Ikkaku’s feet dragging across the street as he was sent careening into a house.

He flexed his pressure field, repelling the wreckage of wooden beams now resting on his head.

As he got to his feet, there was a whirr of flash step to either side of him.

He went for Nari, swinging on him with the monk’s spade, but the man had gotten inside his radius too fast. A punch connected with his stomach, then his jaw, and he doubled over. It wasn’t a stretch to say that the man’s fist had hurt as much as, if not more, than the mace he’d taken to the gut earlier. Out of options, he let go of his guandao, trying to throw a punch in return. Just before it could land, it was caught—but not by Nari. The shimmer of shunpo had occurred an instant before, and now it was Saneaki who held his left fist captive.

“Now, Nari!”

Ikkaku felt a body close behind him. _Too_ close. Inbetween his back and the axeblade chained to his weapons. An arm came around his bare waist, hugging him tight in a bear grip, and another arm came up to grab at his right arm, preventing him from taking it off the monk’s spade to punch with his other hand. The only one left with a free hand was Saneaki.

“Get the hell off me, man! I only do this with guys I like!”

There was a flash of light, and then something was in his peripheral vision, but he couldn’t see what it was with this angle. Turning his head, he found it to be the handle of a sword, sticking out from...somewhere?

_Oh fuck. Where the hell did he get that from? _

Just how was Nari holding that thing with no hands free? The tsuba was pressing against his ear, which would’ve had the blade entering its owner’s face.

Saneaki took tight hold of the sword, and he couldn’t shake Nari off in time to escape the brutal slash that crossed his torso.

Or the second.

Or the third.

His bankai crashed to the ground. He had been slashed across both shoulders, severing the tendons with which he held his weapons. A third strike had been delivered horizontally across his stomach. He fell to his knees, and then his face hit the dirt.

He wanted to get up, but yet another stroke of pain hit him as he felt a blade enter his exposed lower back.

“Damn it…”

“About time. I didn’t think he’d take this long to deal with.” came Nari’s voice from up above.

“That’s our mission down. What should we do now?”

“Hey!” he yelled, spitting out dirt. “Aren’t you gonna finish me off?!”

But the two were already walking away. He could see their feet moving across the street, and the flail’s chain dragging behind its owner before reforming as the katana he held at his waist.

“I’m heading off to find Akon. You can do what you want, but don’t get yourself killed.”

“That sounds like ‘find a captain and fight him’ to me.” came Saneaki’s answer. “I might go with you though, just to give my shikai some time to regenerate.”

“I said finish me off!” Ikkaku yelled from the ground. “Are you two such cowards you won’t even do that much?!”

But they only continued to ignore him, and Ikkaku gave up yelling once he heard their voices fade into the distance. Shame welled up in him. How many fights was he going to lose before he was given the grace of a death well-earned? But after a few minutes of sitting, he tried to move. He still had control of his legs…right?

“Hang on, Yumichika. We’re gonna get you to infirm…”


	5. North Gate

Rukia kept ahead of Nanao, her flash step faster than it needed to be. She knew Nanao could handle herself, but the sheer number of rebels that had invaded made her nervous. These were not enemies that Shinken Hakkyoken could save her from. The street remained empty so far, but they were coming up on noises of a crowd, and Rukia couldn’t be sure whether it was enemy forces in the distance, or civilian panic. The kido barrier that had reportedly trapped a huge number of civilians was visible from here, even though it was a great distance away, so it had to be enormous. Rukia was just about to make a turn when she heard something behind her.

“Hands in the air!” she said, a hand flying towards the handle of her zanpakuto.

“Rukia, no!” Nanao cautioned her.

It was a civilian, picking herself up off the ground where she’d fallen. Rukia had time to deduce that she was elderly, and dressed to the nines, before she’d been set upon, and her reflexes to knock the woman away were barely restrained in time.

“Puh…P-Please! You have to help me!” the old woman cried, gripping the front of Rukia’s haori.

“Ma’am, why are you running _towards_ the fighting?!” she asked, incredulous. “You should be in your home, or evacuated!”

“It’s my family!” she cried, and Rukia could see intense panic in her eyes. “They live too close to the gate! I have to make sure they’re okay!”

“M-Ma’am, I can’t—there’s no way I can—“

“Then away with you!”

Rukia was jerked harshly to the side, not enough to hurt, but enough so that the woman could slip past her and run off. She turned, watching her make it a few precarious yards before she stumbled and fell harshly to her knees. Turning back around, she saw a black cane left at the spot where the woman had first fallen down.

Rukia ran over to the woman before she could flee any further, trying to help her up. “Ma’am, I will take you to your family, so please, you have to calm down!”

A more assertive captain probably would’ve knocked the woman out cold and left her someplace safe, but Rukia didn’t think she had it in her to do so. She couldn’t just take this woman onto the path of violent rebels…but neither could she let her go off on her own. It looked like that fall had skinned her knee just now, so she was far too fragile to allow near any combat. She grit her teeth.

“Nanao.”

“Yes, Captain Rukia?”

“You can make it to the barrier on your own, can’t you?” she asked, glancing to the street where the green light was shining from.

“Of course.”

“Then I want you to go on ahead without me. I’m going to take this woman to safety, and then I’ll be right back with you.”

“Understood, Captain.”

Nanao flashed off in an instant, but Rukia could hear her as she left the area. She hoped there were no hostiles waiting for the girl. As for herself…

“Come on, ma’am, up you go.”

She hoisted the old woman up onto her back, waiting for a moment as the surprised lady nearly lost her grip before tightening it around her neck. Rukia put her hands down to grip the woman’s ankles, securing her on her back. She wouldn’t be able to use a zanpakuto or hakuda while carrying the woman like this, so she would have to rely exclusively on kido.

“Which way does your family live?”

“Directly north.” she said, pointing down the street past Rukia’s head. “They live on one of the properties just next to the gate. They hadn’t gone to the party—”

“I understand.” she said. “Don’t you worry, I’m going to get them and you to a safe place. I’m going to take some detours, though, to keep us out of the rebels’ way, okay?”

“Yes,” said the woman, though Rukia could hear in her voice that she was uneasy with even a little bit of extra time between her and her loved ones.

Hoisting her up, Rukia ran off. Shunpo took her onto the nearest rooftop, whereupon she began crossing the streets at high speed, going north with only a slight westerly bent.

For a few minutes, there was silence but for the sound of wind whistling in the ear not blocked off by the old woman’s. The moment Rukia heard loud yells and footfalls though, and what sounded like fighting, she adjusted, swerving harshly to remain unseen and climbing higher. There was indeed a wave of rebels heading down mainstreet, all wielding weapons, as she saw from one of the taller rooftops. She kept out of the way, hoping to remain unseen. Weren’t there any lieutenants to put a stop to this over here? Or a captain?

_Oh, right_, she thought. _The northern divisions are 4, 8, and 12. Akon’s division isn’t combat-oriented, Isane’s is an infirm, and Lisa hasn’t promoted a lieutenant yet…and she went to go check on the Kido Corps and Shin’o Academy…It seems like control of this area has fallen to me, _she thought. _I’ll have to clear out the majority of these myself. Luckily most of them seem content to stay on the main street for n—_

“Look! I found one! She’s up here!”

_Damn it_, she thought as the woman let out a gasp of horror next to her ear. She skidded to a halt as a rebel flashed in front of her a rooftop away. Two rooftops behind him, an astoundingly large rebel leapt up to the top of the building. Both were brandishing large machetes.

“Look out!” the woman shrieked on her shoulder. The two advanced on her, but Rukia was ready.

“Bakudo #8: Seki!”

She held her arm aloft, defending against the strike, where a blue orb of light was generated. The first rebel’s machete bounced off of it, staggering him, and Rukia wasted no time finishing him off.

“Hado #33: Sōkatsui!”

A wave of blue fire blasted from her outstretched palm, sending the assailant crashing back the length of two blocks. The larger one behind him was making his way forward, ready to crash his suitably large blade down on them. But she was ready for him, too.

“Bakudo #61: Rikujōkōrō!”

Six flat beams of light converged on her target at the waist, immobilizing him before he could attack. She slid past him with her charge, increasing the speed of her shunpo. She didn’t know if the man’s loud call had attracted more attention, but she didn’t want to stick around to find out. Next to her, she could hear quiet sobs, and wondered if the woman she was helping was holding back tears. She really needed to hurry.

There was silence but for the woman’s hiccuping for a few more minutes. They had to be about halfway to the gate by now. If she could just go a little faster…

They were coming up on a lot with a particularly large gap in the rooftops. Down below, she could see more hostiles. She couldn’t go down and then up, so she would have to make a very large leap with her shunpo. Stopping at the edge of her current rooftop, she blitzed off.

“Aaugh!”

“No!”

She had misjudged her step and slipped on the tiling of the roof she’d aimed for. Her leg came out from underneath her and she lost her grip on her charge, and the elderly woman fell twenty feet.

Rukia entered a panic. The woman wasn’t a soul reaper, there was a strong likelihood she’d been severely injured by the fall, and if that weren’t enough, she was now surrounded by armed rebels.

“Get her!” came a cry from two of the hostiles simultaneously. Bile rose in Rukia’s throat. How sick did you have to be to attack an injured old woman? She raised her hands to perform kido, searching for a spell less likely to further hurt the woman in its use.

“Hado #58: Tenran!”

She aimed her spell in a wide sweep, being careful not to hit the woman she’d dropped, and leaping down from the rooftop at the same time. One by one, the six…seven…eight attackers were swept off, each one slamming through a building or a wall. Curiously, she saw a flash of green light each time she hit one, causing them to vanish. Were they retreating? The color of the light caused her to think of fullbringers, but the actual flash was different.

She ran back to her charge, on the ground some few yards away. The woman’s long, wispy white hair had been knocked loose from its tightly coiled bar, either from the fall, the wind she’d generated, or both, and hung in a mop over her face.

“I am so sorry, are you alright?” She asked, taking the woman’s hand and helping her to her feet. Was that the bar from her hair bun she was holding?

“Aaughch!”

Rukia bit her lip in shock. She looked down at her gut, where she had felt a surge of pain. The old woman’s right arm was outstretched, and was holding a knife. A purple liquid was dripping from it. The left hand was held up, where she could see that it was indeed her hair bar, or half of it. She could see liquid filling the inside of it, where the hidden weapon must have been soaking.

Shock held her still for just a moment. She looked down, where the woman was shaking her hair away from her face, revealing bright yellow eyes.

“My apologies, dear.”

“Guhl!”

Rukia, already feeling harsh agony, felt the knife being pulled out of her abdomen. Why was it always her stomach enemies aimed for? She raised her hand, furious at the deception. Even poisoned, a single stab wound wasn’t going to be able to put her down.

“_Dance! Sode no—_”

But Rukia was cut off, letting out a shriek. The woman had swung her left hand and the vial of liquid with it, hitting her straight in the eyes. Her eyelids slammed shut as her tear ducts overwelled, and terrible pain shot through them. She opened and closed her eyes rapidly, trying to resist, and when she did, her vision was blurred, then gone entirely. She took her hand off of her zanpakuto. She had to dispatch this woman, and began chanting. Her left arm, she threw out, and knew she had succeeded in grabbing the woman’s kimono. Her right arm, she lifted, preparing a spell.

“Hado #73: Sōren Sōkatsui!”

But her spell did not take. The woman’s hand had clashed against her own, palm to palm, and forced a huge amount of spirit energy back. Rather than blowing the two of them up, or backfiring, she felt her spell peter out, a few blue sparks showering down, bright enough to see even past the purple fog clouding her teary eyes.

_ Hanki??? She can use Hanki?! _

“That’s enough, sweet Rukia.”

Another stab came to her shoulder, and this time Rukia barely felt it. It was like the blade went in and out, barely stinging as it pierced her flesh. The woman let go of her hand, where it fell to her side, limp. She felt her knees buckle underneath her.

_ Have I really been paralyzed already? _ Rukia thought. _ Just how strong was the poison she hit me with? _

“I’m sorry to have to do this. I really do appreciate the help. I won’t forget the sincere kindness you showed an old woman.”

The hand holding the kimono went slack, and Rukia felt her face hit the ground, though it was numb, as though she were feeling it through a thick layer of rubber or plastic.

_ Come on, get up! I have to get up! _

“Your family…you lied, didn’t you?”

“Not entirely.” Came the cheerful voice from up above. “We do live close to the gate, and we didn’t attend the party. Suffice it to say I’m not that worried about their safety, though. Thank you for getting me this far, Rukia. I can’t wait to tell the rebel leaders I was the first to take down a captain.”

* * *

Ane was not a particularly fast runner, yet even at nine hundred years old and counting, she didn’t truly need the cane she’d left behind earlier. Coming upon a captain like Rukia had been a blessing, since it allowed her to cross the distance to the SRDI much faster than she otherwise would’ve.

Coming up upon the largest building in the district, she found what she was looking for: the main headquarters, and its large double-doored entrance. Or that’s what she would see, had it not been blocked by an immensely large wall. She could feel the destabilizing waves of the sekkiseki incorporated into it from some distance away. Her eyes scanned downward, and she found something else she was looking for, a man.

He was tall, albeit still the shortest of the rebel leaders, with a build that suggested a lot of lean muscle. He wore a black overshirt and black pants that had been pulled inside long black boots near the midpoint of his calves. His short, inky black hair, shadowing his face, matched his outfit, as did the saw-tooth zig-zag markings along his arms that matched the ones under her own kimono sleeves: the programming link for the Tenteikūra spell. Said arms and his head contrasted as they were very pale. Another sharp contrast was the gleaming zanpakuto hung over his lower back, the sheath and the visible handle both shining gold. She walked up, taking further note of his appearance to see if there were any injuries, but as she expected, there were none. He rarely ever needed help.

“Kazuo, I’m here.”

Kazuo turned to appraise her with bright blue eyes that almost seemed to glow under the shadow of his face.

“You’re hurt.” came his low, raspy voice.

“Only a few scrapes, darling. Nothing serious.”

“Reizo and Junzo will have my head for it all the same.”

“I’ll be in perfect shape by the time I see them. Where are your auxiliary commanders? I thought they’d be here with you?”

“They’re off fighting, but I think Kosuke’s will be here eventually. Nari has some reason he wants to be here.”

“Really? I’m interested to hear what it is.”

“Then should we proceed?”

“Ready when you are, dear.”

Kazuo reached behind him with his left hand and drew the zanpakuto. At the same time, Ane gripped her own, the small knife whose sheath she disguised as the hair bar she wore. She moved to be at his side, so she could get her first ever glimpse of the actual blade’s release. He held it horizontal with both hands, one just under the guard, and the other just ahead of it on the blade.

“_Unstitch__, __Dorob__ō__-Te._”

Kazuo slid the fingers on his right hand down the length of the blade, and following his fingers, the blade dissolved into a small trail of thick black smoke. As Ane watched, the smoke coalesced around his right hand, while the remaining handle of the blade melted and slid like liquid around his left hand. The black smoke formed a glossy, elbow-length glove over his right arm, accented with three thin gold stripes near the back end. The liquid gold formed an opposing gilding over his left arm, accented with three black stripes.

Kazuo strode forward, and Ane followed. He lifted his arm towards the huge sekkiseki-laden metal door, and placed his left hand on it, palm flat and fingers splayed. From the point where he touched the wall, the material was transmuted, turning into solid gold. Once the wall was entirely gold, his fingers dug in, crunching through the weak metal with ease.

Ane ducked as Kazuo ripped the entire wall off its hinges, tossing it off into the lot, where it skidded to a stop. Moving further forward, the large double doors revealed, he kicked them in, and Ane watched as two dozen laser sights focused on the both of them. Half of them were from wall-mounted guns and cameras. The other half were from armed researchers.

“Turn back and fall to your knees with your hands behind your head.” Came a voice from an intercom. “Surrender and you will not be harmed.”

“Ah, Akon.” she heard Kazuo whisper. “I’ll be with you soon. Ane?”

Ane held her zanpakuto aloft.

“_Illuminate, Shokudai._”

As she ducked down, all light left the area, including that from the laser sights, plunging them into darkness. A small circle of light each allowed both herself and Kazuo to see, her _Seinaru __R__ōsoku_ in action, with which she could see the typical form her shikai took: a candlestick in hand, whose wax candle was burning at the tip with a white flame that powered it. She heard panic from the researchers as they fired their weapons, but the blasts flew over her head. None of them connected with Kazuo, who quickly busied himself with dispatching them.

“Go, now. Get Akon and subdue him.” she told him, and she watched him disappear into the facility’s depths.


	6. South Gate

Kenpachi Zaraki strode forward, almost shaking with excitement. He’d been right to head out ahead of everyone else. This guy with the red hair was exuding almost no spiritual pressure whatsoever, but he couldn’t fool him. With this much fodder out and about, the only people that walked alone were the truly strong ones.

“What’s your name, guy?” he asked, holding his zanpakuto out before him. At this angle, it pointed towards the man’s throat, where a gold medallion was laying on a thin chain around his neck. He could feel a splatter of blood on him from a wound he hadn’t inflicted yet, hear the slight clink of the chain breaking. He hoped this would be a good fight.

“Kosuke Hikaru.” the man answered, not taking his hands out of his pockets. “And you, of course, are Kenpachi Zaraki.”

“Heard of me, have you?” Zaraki asked, beginning a slow walk forward. The other man didn’t flinch, and he liked that.

“Most Rukon citizens have. You made quite a few lives a nightmare growing up, the ones that survived.”

“Here for revenge, are you?”

Kosuke shrugged. “Not really. You didn’t hurt me, so it’s not on my shoulders.”

“But you do intend to fight, right?” Kenpachi asked, holding back a small amount of fear that he wasn’t here to do that. “And are you going to draw your weapon, or take me on barehanded?”

“I probably could, if I wanted.” Kosuke said, drawing the zanpakuto at his waist. As Kenpachi watched, it transformed into a long, red staff. “I used to be a Squad 11 member myself, you know, long before you got here. There won’t be any need for you to hold back.”

Kenpachi’s grin widened, and his grip on his sword tightened, as he prepared his stance. But, before he could lunge, the man spoke again.

“Wait. Before we start, I have a question.”

The grin faltered, and then fell off his face completely. Couldn’t they just go to blows and talk later?

“Yeah, what is it?”

“You’re a product of the Rukongai. Haven’t you ever wanted to…you know, go back? Try and improve things there? I know it was hell for you growing up.”

Kenpachi frowned. What sort of bullshit question was that? Why would he want to go back to the Rukon unless a strong opponent was there?

“Mopping up those villages holds no interest for me. The only thing I care about is fighting the strongest opponents I can find. The strongest opponent works as a captain here in the Seireitei.”

Kosuke didn’t seem to exhibit much of a response. There was no change in his expression, eyes curious and mouth half-curved in that tiny smile. He was silent for a few seconds.

“Well…I guess I won’t hold that against you. Good on you for being honest.” he said, pulling his bo staff behind him, free arm forward. “I’m afraid I can only indulge you for a little while, as I don’t have the time it would take to put you down in an extended fight. Maybe about two minutes or so. So go ahead and take off your eyepatch.”

Silence.

“W-What?” Kenpachi asked, not sure if he’d heard right.

“I said, take off your eyepatch.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thinks he may have just gotten hard. His left hand reached up to the eyepatch over his right eye, where he could feel more than half of his monstrous spirit energy being leeched away second by second. He ripped it away, and his spiritual pressure sent out a shockwave, nearby buildings groaning and tilting away from the force, leaning as though the area itself wanted to get away from him. To his utter delight, Kosuke still looked ready to fight.

With a gleeful yell, he lunged forward.

* * *

Shuhei surveyed the two people below him, a man and a woman. The similarities ended at the black markings running up the lengths of their arms. The woman had a face that should’ve been plump, but the cheeks were too hollowed and the circles under her eyes too deep. Her eyes were hazel, and her frazzled auburn hair was tied back in a loose braid. Her arms were bare in the bolero she wore, and they were rail thin; most of her, in fact, was very thin. The man had a very angular face and dirty blond hair falling in messy waves over his eyes, and the skin around the black ink seemed to be sunburned. He was tall and muscular, but like with the woman, there was a gauntness to him, as though he’d been malnourished. They were exerting a fierce spiritual pressure, but that of the woman’s paled in comparison to that of the man’s. If Shuhei were to guess, he’d say this was a rebellion leader, and most likely his second-in-command.

His hand was going for his zanpakuto, and he was just about to deliver a fierce surprise attack on the unsuspecting rebels when he heard a clatter of breaking tile.

“Shuhei! You left me behind!”

He let out a groan. Mashiro was here, and as he watched, the two rebels below turned up to look at him. So much for the element of surprise.

“You aren’t supposed to give your Super Lieutenant the slip, ya know!”

It would’ve been nice to be able to send her away, but she held equal position with him. Down on the ground, he saw the enemy drawing their swords.

“Well, since you’re here, why don’t you take her on, and I’ll deal with him?”

Mashiro tittered and stamped her foot. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing! I can sense their spirit energy! Don’t think you can get away with sticking me with the weaker one because you have bankai now! Or are you trying to make me have a catfight with another girl? Pervert!”

_Maybe you could make these sort of decisions if you were at least packing even a shikai_, Shuhei thought bitterly. However, the best way to get through to Mashiro was to play her game against her.

“Well, I figured I should have a chance to show off everything the Super Lieutenant has taught me.” he replied, hoping he sounded more convincing than in his head. Thankfully, after a moment of silence and a quizzical tilt from Mashiro, it worked.

“I guess you’ve earned that right.”

_CRASH_ _._

The two of them flashed out of the way as something large and heavy went streaking at the place where he’d just been, leaving a large chunk torn out of the roof he’d been standing on.

“Reap! Kazeshini!” he yelled, and as his zanpakuto transformed, he swung downward, aiming the spinning scythe blade at the place between the two opponents. The two dodged in opposite directions, as he intended, and before it could hit the ground, he yanked the chain towards the right. The blade whirled in the same direction, following the man and forcing him a greater distance away from the woman. Shuhei leapt down, running the same way to further separate the two fighters while Mashiro handled the woman.

He heard another crash and heard a building collapsing behind him. He hoped she could defeat her opponent quickly; her record in one-on-one combat wasn’t very good.

“_Beat, Gunko!_”

Shuhei turned to his opponent; instead of a zanpakuto, he was now wielding a large polearm some ten feet across. One one end of it was a small weight. As he responded by throwing Kazeshini, only to have it spin rapidly against the bar of metal before being deflected, he caught the man’s eyes beneath his hair, which were violet. A wave of spiritual pressure rolled over him.

_Right_. Now was not the time to be sportsmanlike and hold back, he realized.

“_Bankai! Kazeshini: __Shindakūki__!_”

Green lightning arced the space where the chains and blades of his zanpakuto flew.

* * *

“Growl, Haineko!”

Despite her bindings, Rangiku’s blade dissolved into a cloud of ash. Whirling through the air, it streaked from one opponent to another, slashing its way through two dozen rebels. With cries of pain as they were struck down, each rebel fell to the ground, bleeding from the wounds she’d inflicted. As she watched, each one of them disappeared in a green flash of light. One by one, not only did her opponents vanish, but so did each layer of the kido restraining her arms, turning from blue back to green, then from green back to yellow, and finally disappearing altogether. She recalled her shikai back into its sealed state.

_Interesting_, she thought, picking herself up off the ground. _They acted completely in unison. They must have differing orders depending on what opponent they’ve encountered._

The Squad 10 soldiers she’d encountered earlier had reported that the rebels had only engaged them long enough to land glancing blows and then left as the soldiers succumbed to paralysis. Yet here, they had attacked her with Hainawa, a low-level kido spell. Breaking such weak kido from clearly untrained individuals with low spirit energy would’ve been easy, but for the strange way the storm of light ropes had worked. One of her targets had woven odd runes through the air, which had caused twenty-four weak individual spells to share their spirit energy and become a single powerful binding.

_Whoever organized this rebellion really thought things through. You wouldn’t expect such low-level souls to even try to combat a lieutenant, much less stand a chance. If I hadn’t had Haineko, I’d probably be a casualty right now. Maybe that’s why the captains in this area are taking so long thinning out the horde._

She looked towards her right, where a chill wind would’ve told her of her captain’s situation even if she couldn’t sense him fighting, and then to her left, where she identified captain Kuchiki’s signature. This news only increased her worry for Tetsuzaimon, who she hadn’t heard from since yesterday, nevermind since the fighting began. The lieutenants were in a troublesome position; Shuhei and Mashiro were fighting very strong opponents, but save them, four lieutenants had already been dispatched. Even greater than her worry for Tetsuzaimon was her worry for Izuru; his pressure signature was frighteningly faint. And now, she had no one to question due to the rebels disappearing once she’d dispatched them.

Rangiku caught movement, drawing her attention back towards the center of the street. Someone had just sped away using flash step.

“Hey! Stop!”

Rangiku gave chase, sprinting forward before engaging her own flash step. If one of the leaders of the rebellion had decided to reveal themselves, she needed to corner them. So far, the only strong presences she’d sensed on the south side of Seireitei were on her own side. It was a worrisome absence.

She kept going at her highest speed, not finding anything for several seconds. Just when she thought the enemy must have escaped or hidden away, another flash of movement reached her senses.

“Ugh!”

Her opponent, in a blur of yellow, had swung by her with a blade, which she barely blocked with her own in time. Turning on her heel, Rangiku was barely in time to block several more strikes. Lifting her foot, she delivered a strong kick to her opponent’s midsection, sending them sliding back. Now, she could get a good look at them.

“Identify yourself!” she ordered, holding her zanpakuto aloft. The enemy, bent down on one knee, was visibly a woman. All that she could see of her was flowing blonde hair, lifting too easily in the breeze and obscuring the rest of her. As she watched, the woman lifted her sword and held it out from her side.

“_Cleanse, Soyokaze._”

* * *

_Hmm. Shuhei seems to be doing well._

Mashiro kept her eyes on Shuhei from beneath her Hollow mask, artfully dodging the large metal ball that went flying towards her. Though the skinny guy was trying with all his might to land a hit on him with that big rod, it never connected, even when it should’ve hit dead-on. The opposite wasn’t true, as Shuhei was battering the man left, right, and center with vicious strikes from the wicked scythe blades. As she watched, the man successfully blocked a thrown blade with the end of his pole, topped with a much smaller ball than the one she was now cartwheeling away from as it tried to crush her on its return path. The ball end of the pole sparked red, and the blades fell to the ground, but Shuhei only responded by catching him in the shoulder with the other one.

“Damn it, stay still!”

_Of course, he still left me with the boring one._

She turned her head back to the scowling woman, who was standing behind her gigantic metal ball, which levitated off the ground. She leapt, and hopped leapfrog-style over it as it launched towards her at high speed.

“It’s no use!” she taunted, lunging with a powerful kick to the woman’s arms, raised in a futile attempt to block her which ended with her flying through two houses. “I know your shikai can only move in straight lines!”

She sped after her opponent not with shunpo, but sonido, finding her picking herself up off the ground.

“Mashiro Super Punch!”

Just before her fist could make contact, Mashiro felt a disturbance. Her left fist was caught in the woman’s own left palm, but more disconcerting was the huge wave of spiritual pressure she was now exuding. It was more than double what it had been earlier…no, triple. Nonetheless, Mashiro still outmatched her, evidenced by the slow slide backward of her shoes in the dirt.

“That’s so sneaky! You hid your spiritual pressure on purpose, cause you’re stronger than that guy over there, aren’t you?”

That settled it, it was go time! Mashiro raised her right hand, where a lime green cero began charging. She saw the woman’s eyes, lit in green light, widening in alarm.

Her opponent jumped back, and in her hand materialized her zanpakuto. As Mashiro threw her arm forward and fired, there was a sweeping downward motion, and she saw her cero, cut in half, wash over the surrounding area, destroying it. Unable to completely force the waves of spirit energy to either side, both the woman’s arms were left singed once it dissipated.

Hmm. This would ordinarily be the part of the fight where Kensei advised her to think about what she was doing—probably in that gruff, uber-annoyed huff he always got into when she fought.

“So, you re-sealed your zanpakuto to get that done…Clever! But I bet a second cero would getcha!”

“Oh yeah?” the woman answered. Behind her mask, Mashiro frowned. The lady was smiling triumphantly. “You’d have to be able to fire one off for it to matter. And I don’t think you can—your mask just cracked.”

Mashiro lifted her hands to her face, feeling her mask. Sure enough, a crack was running across her right eyehole. Crap. Her energy was draining at a fast pace.

“_Impact! Tobutoge __D__aihō__dan!_”

Mashiro took her stance, prepared for the woman’s sword to turn back into the huge metal ball she launched like a projectile, but instead, the sword just vanished.

“Huh?!”

Mashiro saw only the grin on her opponent’s face before she felt a shattering pain as something struck her in the back.

* * *

Rangiku deflected another strike, and another. While she blocked swing after swing, she took careful note of this woman’s appearance, trying to gauge what area of the Rukongai she had been recruited from.

Her enemy should’ve looked gorgeous, but instead she looked haggard. Long blond hair flowed around her face and fell down to her waist, but it was stringy, dirty, and looked slightly too pale, as though she were graying early. Her face was gaunt and bonier than it should have been, and although her blue eyes were undamaged, Rangiku had to look twice to assure herself they weren’t bloodshot. Her bared teeth were straight, but the entire lower half were made of metal. Her nose looked slightly crooked, clearly having been broken in the woman’s distant past. Below the face, her body was far too thin, emaciated even. It was made all the more apparent by the fact that she wore only a tube top and a hakama, her arms completely bared to show off the inked black markings on them.

Rangiku swung her sword, holding it at the edge with her free hand as her attacker pressed forward. Their weapons came to blows, and entering a blade lock, she got a better look at Soyokaze, as she’d called it. It resembled some fusion of a deer horn knife, a chakram, and a wind-and-fire wheel. Its only blade was the outer and inner edges of its ring, which formed a very severe crescent with the tips leaving only enough space for a blade to pass through. Rangiku’s zanpakuto was pressing not against the ring, but against the inner blade which crossed the crescent to form a handle.

“Aagh!”

A strong wind had picked up at exactly the wrong moment. Her own hair was swept backwards, but the scrawny woman’s abundance of it was flying right into her face. She felt the weapons separate and flashed backward a few paces before a hit could land.

“Growl, Hai—”

Rangiku was forced to deflect the wheel blade as it came flying at her. When the ring hit her sword, she had to lunge away as it spun around her blade, nearly slicing her face off and forcing her off-balance. She swung, and Soyokaze was launched back towards the woman, who caught it easily. At the same time, Rangiku sensed another presence. She turned on her heel, keeping towards the side of the road so that on her left was her current opponent, and on her right was apparently a new one.

In the short span before she was forced to deflect another thrown assault by the crescent knife, she saw a man in a burly dark brown coat that was too big for him. A tight overshirt and simple pants, both black, underneath. A wakizashi in a sheath at his left hip. Then, she was forced to knock the crescent knife off course again, where it clanged off of the road and bounced up onto a rooftop.

She kept her eyes on the first assailant, but as she watched, the crescent moon knife dug itself out of the roofing and returned to her hand. She lifted her sword and lunged. Better to get this one out of the way before this became a two-on-one fight.

The ragged woman was ready and slashed, countering her strike. She swung from overhead, but as Rangiku dodged, she realized her mistake:

“Oww!”

Instead of trying to slash her, the woman had been hurling her blade at the ground. The crescent knife bounced up off the concrete and tore a strip out of her shoulder, and produced a sinister whistling. The lieutenant swung her head around to look for where it landed, but only found it curving mid-air to attack her again. She responded by swinging her sword in a wide arc, forcing the ragged woman back but deflecting her weapon just in time. She was now facing the man in the longcoat again, but felt a kick against her back. Rangiku stumbled forward, and at the same time, he drew his wakizashi with surprising speed.

_Cling!_

She held her second blade lock today, and could now see the man’s face properly. Short dark hair that was messy, and yellowed teeth under a squashed nose. This man’s grey eyes were indeed bloodshot.

_It looks like I won’t be getting out of this very quickly_, she thought.

“Growl, Haineko!”

To her relief, she got the full release command out this time. Her blade turned to ash, falling away before rising in a fog around them and nullifying the blade lock. It formed a rapidly spinning cloud around them, obscuring them from view, which would hopefully deter any more attempts at the woman throwing her ranged weapon at her.

She swung the handle of the blade, and several streams of ash shot inward from the tornado around them. As she watched the man barely dodged, leaning back and twisting with each attack. Though he avoided real damage, all of her attacks grazed him, yet he didn’t seem to react much to them. The jacket, torn to shreds, showing her markings along the man’s arm similar to those on the woman’s.

“Oh hey. I can do that too.” came the man’s voice in a lazy, unconcerned drawl, wakizashi still held aloft. “_Intoxicate, Yadokugaeru._”

_What _ _the hell _ _does he mean by that?_

As she watched, an arm over her face to block potential damage, she saw the blade of his sword glow white. It dissolved into a fine, powdery mist, which floated in the air for only an instant.

_I don’t need to wait to see what it does_, she thought, swinging her handle to alter her ash cloud, but before she could let down her tornado wall and gain distance, the man inhaled and blew the powdery spread right at her.

“Aaugh!”

Rangiku held a hand over her mouth and nose, stumbling backwards out of her own barrier. She coughed and hacked incessantly, not seeming to be able to clear her throat. The walls of her nasal passages and throat felt like they were being clawed at, a simultaneous burn and itch.

“B-Buh, Bahk…guah!”

She couldn’t get a spell out, still coughing, and resorted to another swipe of Haineko, this time drawing the ash cloud around herself and herself only. Her eyes watered, and she fell to one knee. What was she going to do? These two had already cornered her and they weren’t even fighting together.

“You can go now.” came the drawl from outside her cloud of ash particles. But in an instant, that cloud was blown away. She was exposed.

Rangiku looked around herself. It was difficult to see with her eyes so wet, not to mention her hair in her face due to the sudden strong wind buffeting her, but she could see a blurry silhouette of the man whose coat she had torn, standing at the edge of where her protective cloud had been.

“N-Nekotsume!” she called, swinging the handle of Haineko in a wide arc. But nothing happened.

“Look behind ya.”

She followed the man’s instructions, craning her head back at the northern end of the street. Unable to get her eyes to stop welling up, she furiously rubbed her hand across one until she had a clear image for at least a second or two. She saw the woman from before, her Soyokaze wheel rapidly spinning in place in the air about her. The ash cloud of her Haineko surrounded it in a fast-moving hurricane-like wheel. She swung her handle again, trying to get it free, but the ash only managed to get inches away before the wind pulled it back in.

_Shit. My zanpakuto’s been captured._

“You should get to infirm.”

Rangiku glanced back towards the man, unsure if she was hearing him right.

“You inhaled way more of that stuff than I can usually get my enemies to do. I’m pretty sure it’ll fuck up your body in a quantity that large even without all the sensory problems. You guys’ infirm is the 4th Division, right? That’s on the opposite side of the Seireitei, so you should get going quick. The hallucinations are going to start soon. We’ll letcha go, if you go now.”

His words were making an awful kind of sense. Hallucinations? She definitely needed to leave. There was no way at all she could fight them even one-on-one without being able to use Haineko, nevermind two-on-one.

She stood shakily to her feet, and turned towards the woman and ran. She made it past her unscathed, though once she had run enough distance, she recalled her sword back to its released state.

_How many seconds has it been since I first inhaled the drug?_ she wondered. _How many more do I have before they affect me, and how many more after that before I’m too impaired to get help?_

She sprinted, blitzing it at her fastest pace northward with her flash step. There were many miles to go before she could get to the 4th’s barracks, but if she hurried, she might could make it.

_Damn it all to hell…_


	7. Flashback 01

_There are a lot of rules in the Soul Society. Some of them don’t make a lot of sense, and a lot don’t make sense until later. Once you enter the Seireitei, you enter a whole world full of those rules. And people from the Rukongai only enter the Seireitei one way, and for one reason: to become a soul reaper._

_And once I entered the Shin’o Academy, and then the squadrons themselves, I was entering a whole world of invisible traditions and restrictions. My squad being the Eleventh, I didn’t have to worry about most of them. I just fought when I needed to, and enjoyed a life free from poverty for it. I drank with friends, slept on my own time, and got food and a healthy salary. _

_But I didn’t want to do that forever. I was good at fighting. In fact, it was pretty much the only thing I was good at. But I wasn’t enamored with it. It was just a means of getting off my feet. Exorcising Hollows was one thing, but the job got harder to do when it meant turning against other souls. I was frequently sent out to catch criminals in the Rukon that caught Seireitei notice, mostly consisting of petty thieves who targeted nobles dumb enough to venture out, and small-time rebels. Orders on whether to capture or kill were loose, and when they weren’t, it was to kill. It was unpleasant at best, when I was killing amoral bastards who deserved it. Those were few and far between, though. Mostly it was just people who were desperate, like I had been. _

_It bothered me, that we’d put blades through bodies like it was routine, and then laugh about it over drinks later. Some of my squadmates didn’t think of it any differently than cutting down Hollows. I once asked the captain back then if it didn’t go against Soul Society principles to just kill any troublemakers we found. The Kenpachi just shrugged and told me that they killed each other all the time, so it didn’t matter, and even if it did, they could always just go kill a few Hollows and put the numbers back in order._

_That was about two hundred and sixty years ago. That was the day I decided I wanted to leave. I’d gathered my savings, and I didn’t think anything of turning in my zanpakuto and asking to retire. Never occurred to me that you just didn’t do that. That once you’re a soul reaper, you’re in it for life. There’s no official process for it, I just went to my Kenpachi and told him I’d had enough. Didn’t think anything of the weird look he gave me. _

_The next night, I had stealth force agents at my house. I put up my best fight, but they drugged me, and dragged me off. When I woke up, I was wearing a white robe and a black sash, and I was in some prison cell. The guards told me I was in a place called the ‘Nest of Maggots’, a secret, lifelong penitentiary for citizens the Soul Society has deemed ‘dangerous’. No trial, no crime, just gone. I was told I’d have two meals a day, and the rest was up to me. _

_There were others in there who’d been attempted retirees, but I was never able to be sure if it was my empathy for the Rukon citizens that had me branded a danger to the establishment, or if they just treat any people who try to retire the same way. _

_Pissed me off, of course. Was mad at a lot of people, but mostly myself. I should’ve just cut and run, and kept my zanpakuto to myself. Should’ve called bullshit on the weird way the Seireitei worked long before it affected me personally. _

_Before the Nest of Maggots, I hadn’t wanted to fight anymore. Once I was in, fighting was all I could think about. I didn’t have my shikai anymore, or any real weapon except my fists. I didn’t know what keeping myself in shape and punching the walls of my cell would even do anymore, but I knew I wanted to make someone pay._

_You lose track of time once you’re in there, because there are no clocks, no newspapers, no real method of discerning time except day and night, and those start to lose meaning. Days blended into weeks, weeks blended into months, and nobody knew when a new year had passed. You could ask a guard the date, but you’d get different answers from each one. I’m sure even some of them didn’t really know. I’m also sure some of them thought it was funny. Nevermind how many people went mad, never able to see the outside world, never able to see their loved ones again. _

_There was one way to keep track of time, though. New arrivals to the Nest of Maggots were sparse, but you could ask them what the date was. I saw little Akon and young Nari getting brought in, and according to the dates they told me, it’d been ten years since I’d been imprisoned._

_It was disgusting. The guards had called the kid a freak and an abomination, cuz of some weird interest in science. Anatomy, chemistry, I couldn’t tell. To me, he just looked like a normal, scared little kid, and he’d been put in prison for the rest of his life. Couldn’t really say that about Nari, though, who showed up a little over a month later. White hair and red eyes. Said it was because he’d allowed Akon to run some tests on him, and the C46 had used them as an excuse to lock him up. Wouldn’t tell me what the real reason was, not until we’d been busted out over a hundred years later._

_The Nest is a dangerous place. The guards tell you fights aren’t allowed, but they don’t intervene when they happen. Rage had only been able to keep me sane for so long. Looking after those two and making sure they weren’t preyed on, weren’t beaten up or abused, was a mission I took on, and it helped me stay rational. I taught them how to fight. Akon learned quickly enough, though he didn’t seem cut out for it. Nari started beating my ass with a speed that shocked me. But they learned. And the whole time, I’d spread rumors about Akon and Nari, so that if people were going to think of them as freaks, it’d be cause to stay away from them, and not as an excuse to bully them. Whispered things to the more sane inmates about the freak experiments they’d pull on people that annoyed them. Got them a good barrier up between them and everyone else._

_The day came when Akon left the Nest. I gave the kid one last hug on the way out, but I worried for him. Some dickhead I’d never heard of was taking him to be a soul reaper, and that was the same guy who was trying to get the monster in the Solitary Confinement Cell in his ranks. I knew he could take care of himself now, but I just hoped he didn’t interact with any soul reapers, much less dangerous ones, any more than he had to. If whatever he was headed towards was better than the Nest of Maggots, and it had to be, he needed to go for it._

_The really shocking arrival to the Nest was Kosuke. He was a wreck when he was brought in. Unlike the other two, I knew who Kosuke was, because I’d spent time with him in the Eleventh. He was the 3rd seat back then, and the best damn warrior in the place short of the Kenpachi. I’d challenge him every once in a while back then, and he used to beat me black and blue and then carry me to infirm and bring me sake, and we’d laugh because I was stubborn and never learned. He told me, after he got his bearings, that he’d been accused of a crime he hadn’t committed. The funny thing was, he didn’t even know what the crime was. I believed him. Innocence was the default in the Nest of Maggots. And I knew him well enough to know he was too good-natured to truly hurt anyone._

_The funny thing is, Kosuke didn’t arrive shell-shocked. But he got that way, a week after he was thrown in. He got a stare in him, like he was looking right through me. I didn’t find out what that was about until later, either._

_I knew Kosuke had to be planning something. He’d never sit by and just accept this shitty sort of fate. I never asked the details. I just begged him, made him promise to take Nari if he ever managed to leave. I didn’t know how he’d go about it. The guards had kido, and we didn’t. But I did know one way to train. _

_Only one person was ever in the Solitary Confinement chamber, and that was some bona fide lunatic. But there’s a tamer version where they stick troublesome inmates. For most of the populace, “solitary confinement” meant the punishment for starting fights or beating up guards, and was usually called “the hole”. They’d throw you in a pitch black room at the bottom of a deep hole, with a ball and chain attached to your leg. Most inmates experienced that once, and they never made trouble again. Not me, though._

_For me, it was a perfect opportunity to get my hands on a weapon and train uninterrupted. A huge weight attached to your leg doesn’t seem like a conventional weapon. And it isn’t. At first, I used it as a flail the same way anyone would. Then, I started learning how to use it not just with my hands, but with the leg it was attached to. After years of deterioration and atrophy, my body started to grow strong again. At least once a week, I raised enough hell to get sent down the hole. The guards thought me bizarre for never learning my lesson, even mocked me by saying I must like it. They never cared about the sounds of the chain rattling or the steel weight hitting the walls and floor. Didn’t mean anything to them, cuz it was no danger to them. There was nothing he could do down there, they thought, so let him make all the noise he likes._

_I kept training, and growing stronger. I’d never held a real mace, but after enough sessions in the hole, I figured I’d probably be better at it than any professional. _

_Years went by. Kosuke lost his broken look, and somehow got back that calm smile I always knew from him. I asked him if he ever wanted revenge, and his answer changed between the few times I brought it up._

_I must have trained in that hole thousands of times. I don’t know what I was waiting for. I guess I was hesitating. If I started a riot and tried to break out, there was a chance Nari or Kosuke could get hurt. I didn’t want that. But I kept training anyway, convinced that at some point, I’d see an opportunity to smash every guard in the place and run free. But that never happened._

_Kosuke left one day. He was just gone. There was a man that looked like Kosuke there for a while, but it wasn’t him. I knew something about him was fake, even if every detail of his face and body were correct, even if his facial expressions were on point. The biggest hint was that he stopped talking. Never let a single sound come out of his mouth. I asked Nari what was up, but he wouldn’t say, even though I could tell he knew something._

_A month after the not-Kosuke showed up, the real one came back. He was at my cell window on the outside, where it should’ve been impossible for him to be with a guard’s tower posted only a dozen yards away. But he talked to me, told me we couldn’t be seen, heard, smelled, or in any way detected right now. He had some kind of amulet around his neck, a coin that clung tight to his body. I recognized some of the pieces as things I’d seen Akon and Nari tinkering with before._

_He told me it was time for us to go free. We’d be sneaking out. I asked him what the hell he was playing at. He could do that if he wanted to, and he’d better keep his promise to take Nari with him. I intended to break my way out of this place loudly, violently. I was going to show everyone their mistake in thinking they could throw me in a cell to rot and forget about me just for having some humanity._

_But Kosuke told me that if I wanted to be loud, and to be violent, I’d have my chance. All I had to do was come with him right now, and be patient, and I’d get my chance. I was intrigued. _

_I went with him. He bent the cell bars of my window with his bare hands, and we walked right out of the nest with Nari in tow. It was incredible, how we strode right by guards with flashlights and zanpakuto, and they never noticed us. He told me it was kido, a spell to hide all forms of our presence. _

_Our escape wasn’t flawless. A guard did manage to detect us, almost as soon as we were off the grounds. He got through the spell with his zanpakuto, and Kosuke moved like lightning. Before the guy could even cry out, he’d been knocked down and a hand clamped over his mouth. But he signaled to us that he wanted to go with us. Kosuke figured that if they left a body, a search would occur. But if they all just walked free, the stealth force would investigate and just cover up the disappearances so that no questions were asked that risked the compound becoming public knowledge._

_And he was right. The four of us left the Nest of Maggots forever that day._

_I asked Kosuke how the hell he’d done it all. Learning kido, crafting some weird clone, and even getting out in the first place. He just told me that he couldn’t have done it without a close friend’s help. That friend, he said, wanted to give Seireitei a piece of his mind. He was starting a rebellion, and he needed allies. I gave a hesitant yes. I wasn’t sold on a full-scale rebellion; I’d seen a few of those in my time, and I had been called in to help crush them. They always ended badly for all involved. I was okay with dying to shitkick a few stealth force officers if it meant leaving the Nest. But an out-and-out rebellion would get a lot of people hurt._

_A week later, he gave me back my zanpakuto. I had no idea how the fuck he even got it back, and I wouldn’t for a long while. I still don’t know the full details. _

_When I had first left the Eleventh for the Nest, my shikai had taken the form of a standard machete. The old release command and name that I called didn’t work when I tried to release it again. When I first performed jinzen, the spirit I met in my inner world had changed. The appearance, the name, and the form it was going to take. He’d waited all this time for me to reunite with him. And he invited me to guess the name and the command for myself. We sparred, and by the time I finished jinzen, I had both._

_The name I learned that day was a confirmation. Kosuke was right. We’re all prisoners. The prison is Soul Society, not just the Nest of Maggots. We have to tear it down, start anew. To that end, he’s made me one of his auxiliary commanders. And I’m gonna take this opportunity to repay him for all he did._

* * *

_To live in the Rukongai, for many people, is hell. Depending on how far out you go, the poverty spikes, and people’s desperation with it. Muggings are common even in the middle districts, nevermind the wanton slaughter and rape common on the fringes of the 60s and 70s districts. But if you’re fortunate, like I was, you live very close to the inner ring, where things are rough, but not totally depressing. Worst things around are some gangs._

_That doesn’t mean you don’t still want for things. Doesn’t mean you aren’t still at the mercy of that big wall around the Seireitei and everyone in it. The power gap is extreme. The rules for nobility, depending on how high up the power chain they are, are easily bent or don’t even exist at all. That can never be the case for the Rukongai. If your head isn’t kept down, it’ll end up chopped off. The only question is whether it comes from a thug or a soul reaper._

_I wasn’t smart, back then. I was young, and I was the sort of dumbass to end up with white hair and red eyes because I’d let the odd kid from a street over inject me with something. I was also the type to go snooping around if I could hear talking from the woods behind a line of houses. Shady deals get made a lot in the Rukon. Unsightly, illegal things were often removed from the properties of nobles and given to Rukon citizens who’d get punished for it later. _

_What I stumbled on was a noble clansman trying to get rid of evidence. The two mercenaries he was meeting with wanted weapons, and they wanted zanpakuto. The noise that got my attention was one of the thug leaders yelling, because he’d only brought half the zanpakuto they’d requested, and the rest were weird weapons called “bakkōtō” that he was trying to pawn off. I stepped on a sharp rock while trying to creep away from the scene and, well, that was that._

_Someone heard me, and the clansman called for someone to “go kill that kid”. I made a break for it, but I knew I wasn’t fast enough. These were hardened fighters, and I was a young guy on twig legs. Fighting scared me even more than running did, but I knew that to run, I had to fight. So I circled back around, and surprised the guy standing at the crate of swords with a kick to the nuts. I grabbed the first zanpakuto I could reach and stabbed him in the foot. I took on the other guy that came after me while he was on the ground. I think the edge I had over him was mostly due to him not expecting a scrawny kid to fight back like that. He went down with a slash across the chest._

_Then the noble came at me with a knife he’d had in his sleeve. Got me right in the eye. I caught his leg with the sword, and ran off while he hobbled after me._

_I was too scared to go home for a few days. I was a witness, and I’d seen the guy’s face, so I was a target. I tried to find Akon, that bio-chemist wannabe that had made me looking like an albino. He was younger than I was. In living world years, I was probably about thirteen, and him eight. But for his age, he was still a genius, and he could probably clean up my eye socket. But when I got to his place, the drug dealer that had passed for a guardian for him told me he’d already been taken away by officers a month ago. _

_I panicked and had to go to the nearest doctor I could and hope he wouldn’t sell me out. I got my right eye cleaned out, and got an eyepatch. Then I fled. I spent the next week moving from village to village, trying to stay away from the rougher districts, but determined not to get caught. I kept the stolen zanpakuto with me at all times. I’d never held a weapon before, but now I had a reason to. Soul reapers could swoop down on me at any time. _

_And after a week of running, they did. I’d been careless, or maybe the clansman was just that desperate to protect his secret. Probably both. But he found me, getting food at a vendor stand, and called over the crowd of officers he’d brought with him. _

_I still remember his face from that day. It was the last time I’d ever seen it. A surprised look on that lined, over-powdered face, then his ajar mouth breaking into a wide grin as he called for my arrest. _

_I sprinted as fast as my legs would carry me. Through houses, through the woods, across rivers. There were a lot more than two men after me this time, and they were a lot more capable than the mercenaries I’d surprised a week before. I put a lot of distance between us, but I never quite lost the sound of their voices searching for me._

_Eventually, I hid in a run-down shack hoping they wouldn’t find me, but knowing they would. And I looked at the zanpakuto in my hand, and I begged it to help me. I begged to know its name, and its power, if I was going to make it out of this. And reality faded away._

_It usually takes months or years for a soul reaper to imprint on their asauchi. In my inner world, I learned that this zanpakuto had spent the past week bonding to me at a highly accelerated rate due to the fact that my soul was “bleeding”—it was pouring out large amounts of spirit energy and the edges of it were fraying and leaking, both accidental effects due to the fluid I’d been injected with two months earlier and both enabling me to leave an imprint far faster. It was feeding off of the remnants of that fluid that had made their way into my inner world._

_I asked its name, and it said that if it were to tell me, I would have to become one with it without cease from that moment on. Something was off, and I knew it didn’t mean in the sense of friends or partners. But I agreed, and it told me its name. My inner world faded away, and back in reality, what I held in my hands was a glass eye. It was green, but turned red in my hands. I took off my eyepatch, and placed it in my head. _

_The world became blurry and the sounds melted together while the eye adjusted to my body and tapped into my brain and optic nerves. The door was busted in behind me, but I couldn’t resist properly as the officers found me and dragged me away._

_I was dragged off to a place I’d never been before, blindfolded on the way there so as to not understand where I was in relation to anywhere else when I arrived. I heard the voice of that rotten clansman, and heard from the surrounding officers that he was a member of Central 46. I was led to my prison, the Nest of Maggots, on charges of consorting with “the devil child”. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I figured it was an excuse to throw me in and silence any possible testimony._

_When my blindfold was taken off, I was officially a prisoner. I found out that the “devil child” I’d been accused of consorting with was Akon himself, and that this was a secret place for people deemed dangerous to Soul Society, whether or not they did anything wrong. Weapons were not permitted here in any fashion, and so I realized what my zanpakuto had meant by saying we had to become one forevermore. I had managed to sneak a weapon in by hiding it inside my eye socket. Now it was just a matter of learning when to use it._

_I was taken under the wing of a guy named Saneaki Maeda, along with Akon. He was a decent dude, who wanted us to be able to look after ourselves. Not every inmate was dangerous, but a lot of them were, and most of the ones that were had been made that way from the degradation of their sanity. All sentences were for life, and some had gone hundreds of years without seeing the world beyond the walls they now called home. _

_He trained us, taught us how to fight. And in the process, I learned what exactly it was my shikai does. _

_It not only kept my depth perception in check, it tapped into my nerves and muscles whenever I entered a sparring session. When I got in the sand circle with Saneaki, I could see lines, reticles, thousands of information bytes heading into my brain, pointing out weaknesses to me, calculating how best to take advantage of them, monitoring for attacks and giving my body jolts of energy to help me avoid them. I don’t think anyone else ever found out that the hand-to-hand prowess I quickly started building had to do with me having a hidden advantage. I learned that the color change from green to red occurs whenever it comes across new information or detects a weakness._

_I liked that. In the first twenty or so years, I was still angry. Not loud about my anger, like Saneaki. But I wanted to get back at that shitty rich criminal who’d thrown me in a cell to cover his own ass. I liked to imagine walking up to him in his quarters, him cowering against a wall, and the look on his face when he saw my mismatched eyes change, saw the eye he’d carved out turn the same red it had been the day we met. _

_I guarded Akon as best I could, and shared my meals with him when the guards sent them in. I asked him to explain his interests, and he would talk my ears off about soul biology, reactive agents, the flexibility of reishi, how the flow of reiatsu could be altered. He was sorry about the changes he’d made to me, but I told him I liked them, without letting him know just how much his little experiment had done for me. But eventually, he had to leave. He was lucky enough to be recruited as a soul reaper when a captain came by, looking for scientific minds. I made sure to let him know that not only was Akon the best there was, he was just about the only one in the Nest. And then, it was time to say goodbye. It was good that he was leaving. He deserved to see a world he could analyze to his heart’s content. He left me the remainder of materials he was willing to leave behind._

_Although Akon left, a new addition came to our little group in the form of Kosuke, one of Saneaki’s former superior officers. At first, I was afraid of him. I don’t think Saneaki ever felt it, but he exuded a powerful spiritual pressure field, so strong it was causing insomnia in the other inmates. But once this little problem caused him to be relocated to a cell next to “the freak and the troublemaker”, I got the chance to get to know him, and once I was sure he wasn’t going to hurt me, we became pretty good friends. Despite him coming from the same squadron as Saneaki, he didn’t seem to enjoy fighting all that much, though he still sparred with me. Maybe his outlook had been soured—I know mine had. The difference between him and me was ridiculous, and even with my shikai working at full strength, I never beat him._

_It was fifty years before he asked me to build him something to help him conceal his pressure field. I was no engineer, but after Akon left, I was the only one remaining with any real idea of reiatsu mechanics. He would hand me little bits and pieces of materials he shouldn’t have been able to get his hands on, and I figured he’d made a deal with one of the guards. I never finished what he wanted me to work on, but he kept the pieces anyway._

_I knew Saneaki wanted to escape. I didn’t know about his methods, but I had my own. I would perform jinzen once a week. Across the decades, small changes in my zanpakuto spirit were noticeable, and it became a more complete spirit. Not once did I ever re-seal the blade. Guards were always on the watch for any sort of weapon, as even a sharp bit of metal could prove dangerous._

_For more than a hundred years, I kept my shikai released and spoke to it whenever I could. I asked it about any weaknesses it saw in the Nest, any way we could escape, but it never spoke of any, nor did I ever detect any as I observed the walls around me. My opportunity wasn’t something I found, it was something given to me by Kosuke._

_I knew instantly that the fake that was occupying his cell for that one month after he was gone was a kido clone. I could see right through it, see the energy forms being subtly manipulated at a distance, but unable to sense anything beyond the Nest’s grounds, I never located where he’d gone. But I kept his secret. And at the end of the month, he came back for me._

_I didn’t know any spells myself, so the powers he was using to hide us as he went to Saneaki’s cell and helped us trot our way right out of the grounds were astounding to me. Once we were out—along with a guard who’d been convinced to come with us—we were invited to join a rebellion._

_I joined right away. I was finally able to re-seal my shikai, and begin training in swordplay. I asked Kosuke to teach me the kido secrets he knew, and began training in that as well. I became a strong rebel recognized for my skill, and as Kosuke and three other men began to contruct the rebellion in full, I waited. We all waited, and watched the various happenings that occurred around the Seireitei._

_We watched the cannon fire, and the details of the ryoka invasion made their way back to us. This was disappointing, because I found out that Aizen had murdered the entirety of the Central 46. That was my revenge, ripped out from under me. It was disappointing for the rest of the rebellion too, wondering if it was worth it now that the main governing force of this entire region was dead. But sure enough, they installed another forty-six nobles within the month, as if nothing had happened. _

_We heard of the Hueco Mundo incidents, and we stood back and kept a safe distance as the second Quincy War unfolded. We watched the Gotei 13 fracture. Throughout it, all I needed to know was if Akon was still safe. And eventually word got back to me of a madman’s death, and I was ecstatic, realizing he’d done what I’d always known he was capable of doing: fighting back._

_I swore that when we enacted our rebellion, I’d see that little kid one more time, and tell him how proud of him I was._

* * *

Nari chewed the inside of his cheek, so very confused. He doesn’t expect Akon to take being held captive well, but he thought he’d be happier to see him after all this time. Didn’t matter; he was happy enough for the both of them. He stood in one of the deep offices of the SRDI, the personal captain’s quarters for the last ten years. Akon was on his knees, bound by Hainawa ropes and leaned against a wall for Nari to talk to, courtesy of one Kazuo Zaizen, who was leaned back casually against the opposite wall.

“You can’t do this! We’ve finally achieved peace! The last ten years are the first true era of contentment we’ve had since I escaped the Nest!”

Ah, Akon. Always tended to see the short term of things. Brilliant scientist, but not a very persuasive speaker. Nari doesn’t miss a beat. There’s all the things he could say—that it was only contentment for those well-off enough to afford to live inside their walls—but he won’t. Akon was blind, not dumb. His words were desperate, and Nari knew they were spoken less from any love for the establishment he worked for than the love and fear he held for the little girl behind the opposite wall—a little being called Nemuri Hachigou, asleep in her bed in the safest, most secure room of them all. More importantly, he knew the truth waiting at the end of their rebellion.

“Once we’re done with this, Akon, there won’t be a Nest anymore. You should never have been there in the first place. Why do you look so upset? You’re the model we shape ourselves after.” he said. “People can only suffer so long, before they strike back. And this is how it happens. It’s not another war you have to fight in. It’s just change, happening at the breaking point the way change always does. I couldn’t be happier that you beat us to the chase.”

“Beating you to the—are you talking about Mayuri?”

“Of course. Do you know how many people have suffered for this? How many people suffered and died at the merciless hands of the Seireitei, how many of them did so under your predecessor? That’s why you’re being given special treatment. You killed him—you avenged the 28,000. You’re a _hero_, Akon!”

And he fell to his knees and kept his promise, wrapping arms around the trembling man, and heard trembling, fearful breath against his ear. He needn’t be so afraid.

“Many other people are going to want to thank you. Don’t shy away from them when they do. You never wanted to hurt anyone, and you bled justice out of him. You won’t be harmed in any fashion—neither will any of your Division members, or your daughter.”

Yes, he knew that girl behind the steel bedroom door bulkhead was for all intents and purposes exactly that. Maybe when this was all over, Akon wouldn’t mind having a big brother again.

“You swear?! You swear she won’t be hurt?!”

“On my life.”

His red eyes met the researcher’s grey ones. For a silent instant, he could see memory in them. Remembering the Nest, and what it was like to live in fear—but to have a protector. To have someone looking out for him. Positive energy welled in him, unaffected by Kazuo’s gaze boring into them from a few feet away.

“I’ve missed you, Akon. And I’m so proud of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Saneaki Maeda** is one of two auxiliary commanders--equivalent to lieutenant position and strength--under rebellion leader Kosuke Hikaru. Older and stronger than the rest save the rebel leaders themselves, yet moral and compassionate, Saneaki is the one rebels look to when wishing to become something. Even his zanpakuto uses him as a model. After spending more than a century separated from him, his own zanpakuto changed its identity to reflect the new man he'd become post-prisonbreak. Its name is 囚人 (_Shūjin_, "Prisoner") and its release command is "Break Free". It takes the form of a ball and chain strapped to his ankle, but which he tends to wield in-hand until he wants to surprise opponents.
> 
> **Nari** is one of two auxiliary commanders under Kosuke Hikaru. He can easily be called the most combat-proficient member of the rebellion outside its leading forces, especially once his shikai, 狩猟目 (_Shuryō-me_, "Hunting Eye") is accounted for. Thanks to a happy accident when willingly testing out a soul-altering fluid created by a young prodigy named Akon, Nari benefited from the desperate circumstances of his youth and, after becoming the fastest person to ever unlock a shikai after gaining the asauchi, also became the person who held it in released form the longest, never once re-sealing it (and thus reducing strain on his spirit energy usage) for his entire stay in the Nest of Maggots. Without it, he is still well-trained, albeit not as good as Saneaki, which he makes up for with formidable kido abilities. Nari prefers slyness over brute force, and after becoming a formal part of the rebellion, his shikai mutated further. It can extend small spikes to draw in blood from his inner eye socket, converting it into a strong temporary steroid should he need a boost in battle. This steroid, made with his DNA, is only effective on himself and can be used to poison anyone that inadvertently handles his shikai. The glass eye's release command is "Blink".
> 
> * * *
> 
> Saneaki's _Shūjin_ occurred to me after watching the Bride vs. Gogo Yubari in _Kill Bill Volume One_ and the odd ways such a strong yet unconventional weapon was handled. Nari's _Shuryō-me_ was based on the powerful optic and hunting abilities of the dragonfly that enable it to be such a strong predator and such difficult prey. However, a dragonfly-based shikai already existed in canon (Lisa's Haguro Tonbo), so the name was altered. Nari was also originally set to fight Byakuya, which would've reflected a dragonfly's ability to catch prey in a swarm without touching the other parts of that swarm. This had to be excised to fit with the coordinated map and timeline of the rebellion assault.


	8. East Gate

Kenpachi Zaraki was in a state of ecstasy.

He swung, and he swung, using wide swipes and interspersing them with stabs and jabs from the pommel end of the handle. But he never got through. As frustrating as that was, he could feel give when the weight of his strike bore down against the red staff his opponent wielded.

_He’s definitely faster than me_, Kenpachi thought. The other man’s fighting style was more about misdirection and good reflexes than particularly powerful blows. Nonetheless, the hits he’d taken were going to leave bruises. Many times, the captain saw the jagged, weathered edge of his zanpakuto sliding down the length of the red bo staff, producing a beautiful display of sparks, and the protesting shriek of metal scraping metal was music to his ears, and the vibrations sent up the length of his arm only made it better. Now was one such time.

“Gotcha!”

The last time this had happened, Kosuke had gotten in close and brought the other end of his staff right against Kenpachi’s jaw. But this time, he caught the attack, a booted foot headed for the exact same place on his face.

_Clunk!_

“Gurgh!”

Kenpachi’s face hit the ground, and he tasted concrete. Where he had been overbalanced due to his swing, Kosuke had let the staff press against the ground and swung his body around it to slam his free foot against the back of his head. To his left, the rebel hit the ground rolling. Looked like grapples weren’t going to work. But he still had one idea left to him…

Kosuke had so far gone for his legs, stomach, and face when trying to land previous hits. Judging by what he’d seen of how the guy fought and which openings he went for, he thought he might be able to lure him into something just right. And if he was going to both predict and react fast enough, he needed more force in his swing, so that his opponent would dodge instead of deflecting.

Crouching down and holding his sword out to his right, Kenpachi lunged forward, swinging his sword diagonally with tremendous power. His sweep started low enough that, as he’d figured he would, Kosuke leaped over it, somersaulting mid-air. Unlike his last strike, this one left him in a good position to counterattack.

_ Clack! _

Kosuke had swung on his way back to the ground, throwing most of the pole’s length right at Kenpachi’s jaw. This was exactly what he’d wanted, and though it hurt like a son of a bitch and cost him a small piece of his tongue, guessing by the blood he’s tasting, he’s got what he wants: the end of the red staff trapped right between his teeth.

“The hell?!—”

Too late—Kenpachi swung back towards the right, and he finally got his first blood this match. Kosuke leapt back, but not in time to save him from the blade. His strike landed, producing a splatter across Kenpachi’s own chest as his opponent’s was cut through.

“Urgh!”

The force of his strike had sent the other man crashing through a building. He spat out the metal pole, licking his wounded tongue against his teeth as it clattered to the ground. He stood back, swung his blade free of blood, and waited. As he watched, the rebel climbed out of the wreckage of wood and stone around him.

“Looks like the two minutes is up.”

Kenpachi felt a wave of disappointment and frustration wash over him. Though his torso was bleeding badly, his cut clearly hadn’t been deep enough. Should’ve held the blade with both hands.

“Don’t think you’re gonna leave! This fight’s just getting started!” he growled.

“I gave you your time in the spotlight, Zaraki. Take what you can get and go.”

He kicked the staff at his feet towards the other man, bidding him to pick it up and get back into a fighting stance. He wasn’t going to be brushed off so easily. It was one thing if this dude were shaken and afraid, but he knew that was bullshit. He hadn’t even reached the ribcage with that strike. Someone as strong, fast, and durable as this needed to give him everything he had! Taking his blade in both hands this time, he ran forward.

He saw a blur of motion, his eyes barely keeping up with the speed, but his arm didn’t match. He swung, but Kosuke was already underneath his blade, inches from him.

“Gyugh!”

He was flying upward. Not backward or at an angle, but directly upward, which he surmised due to the clouds seeming to get closer at a very fast rate. His head had been knocked back with a kick to the jaw that had definitely cracked something in his mouth. How far up was he?

“Good thing the shakonmaku only fries things coming in, and not things leaving.”

Kenpachi forced his body to obey, and his neck popped as he looked back downward, then when he saw feet, directly forward. Kosuke was in front of him, moving with him at a similar momentum. His hand was still on his sword, and there was no ground to push off from—! Now was his chance!

But again, his swing wasn’t fast enough. This time, Kosuke’s boot struck him straight in the gut. And like that, Kenpachi was hurtling.

“What the fuck—?!”

The second hit hadn’t hurt that much at all. But he couldn’t see Kosuke anymore—he was flying backward at high speed, seeing buildings and streets pass underneath him. How fast was he going? He dragged his feet against the air, trying to levitate, skid against reishi in the air, but it wasn’t working. Soon, he saw trees. Then he realized he’d left the main westerly street behind, and the entire district with it. When he saw the wall pass underneath him, along with a hill-sized man slumped at the hole broken through it, he knew what Kosuke had done.

_That bastard. He launched me right out of the Seireitei._

* * *

Shuhei swung his blade, a sinister whistling reaching his ears as _Shindakūki_ flew towards the rebel. The man, with his large weight-tipped polearm, tried to deflect it, but it wouldn’t work any more than it had the last few times. The other man, previously very stubborn, had given up trying to hit him, and was now focusing on staying alive. That meant now was the time to end this.

_ Kazeshini: Shindakūki _ looked no different than its shikai iteration. The difference was exactly what happened when he sent the kusarigama flying. As it flew, _ Shindakūki’_s blade cut space, and just before the enemy’s weapon could hit it, it vanished into the gap it tore, chain rattling. At Shuhei’s will, it carved out space again, appearing through a portal to the man’s left.

_ Cling-clik-cling-clik-cling! _

The man had swung the polearm just in time, but the effect was moot. Instead of bouncing off, this time the double scythe blade wrapped around the metal pole, trapping it. Shuhei lifted the other blade, poised to throw it.

“Augh!”

Before he could even let the blade go, the lieutenant saw stars. There was no telling where he’d gone or what was happening around him, only gauging damage. Something had crashed straight into him with enough force to carry him off his position on the low roof. His breath had left him, and Shuhei took a moment to regain it, gasping, and looked to his left. Pressed against his arm, which he could feel was broken at the shoulder, he saw the large, seamless metal sphere that had begun this battle.

_ The woman…? _

At high speed, the orb flew back in the direction it had come from, and Shuhei peeled himself out of the crater of the building he’d been smashed into. He took both chains of his bankai and yanked them back with his right arm, reconstituting them at his side, and back to his side, scanning the area. Where was Mashiro?

He pushed off from the wall, flying back towards the battle site, unconcerned as he let the same weapon that had just plowed into him hurtle straight for him, yet miss entirely.

“Emi?! How did you hit him?!”

Shuhei heard the woman answer the man’s question.

“He can only manipulate the space around his blades or around himself. When he went for you with the blades, he was wide open.”

_ Damn…did she really figure all of that out? How long was she watching? Mashiro should’ve—oh, god damn it… _

He saw some distance away behind the red-haired woman his defeated co-lieutenant, sprawled over the ground, mask absent. He’d been focusing on his own fight so carefully he hadn’t noticed the fading of her spiritual pressure as she was knocked unconscious. Now that he bothered to sense it, she was definitely still alive, but out of the fight.

_ I should’ve tied her up with a Bakudō spell before I came here_, he thought.

Shuhei felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck. One, he could easily defeat. Beating two opponents was still possible. But beating two opponents without catching an unconscious ally in the crossfire…he doubted that he could. It was time to cut and run.

Both combatants were preparing to lunge and launch, respectively, but the lieutenant was faster. He swung both of his bankai blades, aiming at each of them. As they made to fly out of the way, he flew forward, sending the right vibrations down the lengths of his chains. Instead of arcing to continue their attacks, they looped back around him, coming back to his sides and wrapping around his waist. Skidding to a stop in front of Mashiro, he slid his arms under her and pulled her up into them. Not a second later, the cannonball that was Emi ’s shikai went rocketing past him, with that signature fuzzy feeling that always happened when the space distortion took effect, and caused a tree in its path to explode into a storm of chips and splinters.

Once he had her, he turned on his heel and ran. He jumped back up to a rooftop, where he preferred to be, hoping it would keep him from being properly aimed at as he sped northwest towards the 4  th  division.

“Get him!”

There was an explosion of tile and red sparks to the side of his feet, which Shuhei realized must be the proper form of attack by the man’s _Gunko_. Another failed attack by the cannonball came thereafter, but neither struck him. He didn’t look over his shoulder, but rather used flash step as fast as he could, hoping to outpace them.

“We can’t hit him!” he heard called behind him.

“We can still—”

_ Crash! _

Shuhei felt level footing come out from underneath him. The building he’d just flashed onto had exploded, crumbling into so much rubble underneath him. He went sprawling, holding on tightly to Mashiro and unsure whether the groan came from himself or her. She was right. Even if he took to the air, all she had to do was disrupt the spirit particles in the air underneath his feet to ground him. Once they caught up to him, it would be a matter of how quickly he could first dispatch the more aggressive of the two.

He staggered to his knees, still not sure whether he should flee or fight. His space field could only protect himself and whatever was close enough to his person. He couldn’t fight and defend his fallen comrade at the same time…

“Shuhei.”

Something clacked onto the ground next to him, far too light to be a weapon. He looked to his left, seeing a pair of long legs, and then upward, finding the captain of Squad 8 looking down at him.

“Captain Yadomaru.” he said between gritted teeth, trying not to appear too helpless under her gaze. “What are you doing here?”

“I was supposed to be checking on the Shin’o Academy.” Lisa answered. “Looks like I was right to take this path, because you seem to need help. _Smash, Haguro Tonbo!_”

Lisa suddenly swung on her heel, and Shuhei, momentarily forgetting his spatial distortion field, flattened himself against the ground to avoid being gored by the huge monk’s spade as she struck the large metal ball with a resounding _clang!_ rather like a gong, sending it hurtling into the wall of a building, which disintegrated around the impact hole.

“Kensei won’t like hearing you two got cornered so easily, Shuhei. Tell me, are these two strong opponents?”

Shuhei winced, shamed, picking himself up off the ground. “Strong enough. I’d be wary of the two of them working together—especially the woman. She’s an aggressive attacker.”

“I’d noticed. Now go take Mashiro to infirm so the two of you can get back in the fight as soon as possible.”

“Understood.”

Shuhei hurried to his feet, trying to shake off his nerves. Mashiro was heavy on the shoulder of his that wasn’t injured, and he made great use of flash step to remove himself from the area a hundred feet at a time.

_ We were pretty close to the Academy, so it made sense for Captain Yadomaru to show up…but I still wonder if she was watching out for Mashiro’s pressure signature. I deserve an earful for not keeping a closer eye on her, I suppose. _

Behind him, the sounds of fighting resumed, but faded at a fast pace. He headed directly northwest, aiming for the infirmary and wondering how many he’d find there.

* * *

“A husband and wife. How romantic.”

With the two rebels side-by-side before her, the picture was perfect. Judging by the surprise on their faces, though, she guessed they hadn’t expected someone to notice the ring that laid around the woman’s left third finger, nor the silver chain around the man’s chest that, by the very slight bump it created under his shirt, undoubtedly held a similar ring at its end.

“But unfortunately—”

Another crash of rubble interrupted her, and she swung Haguro Tonbo again, returning the offending cannonball right back to its sender, where it stopped, hovering in the air just inches from her outstretched palm.

“But unfortunately, I don’t intend on going easy on you just because you’ve already been worn out by other fights.”

And they were indeed worn. Not already defeated, of course, but their pressure signatures bore the hallmarks of a tough fight beforehand. They were breathing heavy. Lisa put her hand up and pulled it back over her face, dark Hollow energy following the trail of her fingers and forming her rhomboid knight’s visor. As her Hollow mask appeared and clung to her face, a dark red filter appeared over her vision. The enemy signatures seemed to fade even further, becoming weak specks as her own spiritual pressure soared.

_“Hurgh!"_

She lunged with her monk’s spade. The woman was quick, launching her shikai at her, but not fast enough to catch her. Lisa crossed the space just fast enough to feel the cannonball fly past her, and brought her spade, angled downward, up and across. While the woman was forced to dodge and roll out of the way, her target, the man, tried to bring his own polearm weapon up to block, but Lisa was too powerful. His arms barely clung to his weapon as it was knocked out of the way, and a strip of his chest cut away by the edge of her blade. The man staggered backwards, and Lisa continued her assault, jabbing and piercing and keeping pressure up on the man too quickly for him to counterattack.

_ Five, six, seven, eight…_ She got her strikes off in rapid succession, but how many would it be before he caved out from underneath her?

_ He’s surprisingly good with a weapon that long and thick_, she thought, as she found a total of nine strikes of hers blocked with varying degrees of success, but never so little that she got through entirely._ The man’s got skill, even if he’s lacking in his wife’s attack power. _

But Lisa wasn’t a fool. She turned not a second too soon, using the back end of Haguro Tonbo to strike the cannonball dead-on. She herself was staggered this time, but the attack failed to land all the same, being re-directed into a wall. Her arc continued, and she used the momentum to swing her entire weapon around, slamming the largest portion of it against the man’s legs .

His feet were swept out from underneath him, and Lisa got the opportunity she was looking for: The counterweight end of her monk’s spade was brought up and then slammed down onto the man’s calf, breaking it with a loud crunch , and a sharp cry of agony an instant thereafter.

“_IKURO!_”

Lisa leapt skyward, somersaulting over the cannonball’s fresh assault. When she landed, her heel right next to the man’s head, she swept her leg, kicking the polearm away. She looked up, peering towards the screaming woman through her visor.

The wife’s hand was held out, as if reaching for her husband, though she was still a dozen yards away. Lisa readied her shikai, but was met with an attack she couldn’t anticipate—a _thwack!_ upside the back of her head.

“Oww!”

She had to take a second to make sense of what she was seeing, after she swung around to see what was behind her and saw nothing. She turned back towards the woman, and ignoring the sounds of ‘Ikuro’ on the ground groaning in pain, who she flashed a few yards away from just to be safe. What she saw, once she focused, was the woman holding the polearm he’d used. As she watched, the cannonball that was the woman's own shikai floated up onto the flat end of the pole, opposite the round ball that served as its hammer end, which was now a counterweight to match Lisa’s own.

_ I’ve never seen two zanpakuto do that before...or was one of them using half of the other’s whole weapon? _

With a powerful scream of rage, her opponent crossed the distance and swung.


	9. Infirm

_Damn…I finally managed to escape Hinamori and Kotetsu…now where are the rebels?_

Iba was limping. It was just his luck that he got himself injured a few days before an enormous rebellion took place. That’s what he got for trying to fight Hollows on a buzz. Those damn Tres Bestias…

But now that he actually needed to fight, it was becoming a hindrance. Kotetsu had kept a close eye on him to keep him from trying to get up and help in the fight, but he’d seen his chance once she left. Not a moment too soon, either, considering the state of Kira once he’d been brought in. Poor sap. Iba hoped he could hang in there long enough for them to fix his skull.

He needed to find the bastards who were running this rebellion, or at least knock a few heads and do his part to thin the horde that he could hear making noise over on the main road north. He clutched at the bandages around his chest, under which his chest felt fine. The cuts were healed, it was just the cero burns that were paining him with each movement. It wasn’t like he couldn’t fight, and the proof of that was the shikai he held in his free hand. Now, who was going to be the first person he ran across and used it on?

Right on cue, he heard footsteps nearby.

“Stop right where you are!” he yelled, turning towards the source of the noise. Yet he lowered his sword when he saw who was stumbling towards him.

“Rangiku?”

No doubt about it, the person stumbling towards him was Lieutenant Matsumoto. Her hair was a tangle hanging down over her face, her sword was dragging against the ground, her shihakusho was torn in several places, especially on the arms, and it looked like she was bleeding. When he called for her, she looked up. He saw that her eyes were bloodshot and at first, unfocused, as if staring past him. Then, as she shuffled closer, her eyes became sharply focused right on him. Iba watched her expression contort into some combination of anger, fear, and panic.

“Aaaagh!”

Iba pulled his shikai up, blocking her attack as sparks flew. In shock, he stumbled back, but ground his foot in, pressing back.

“Rangiku! What the hell is your problem?!” he roared, spittle flying. Her hand shook, but before her blade could drop from his, he saw her expression change again. Anger and panic vanished and only fear was left.

“I…Iba…?”

“Yes, Iba!” he said, stunned. “It’s _me_!”

Her weapon clattered to the ground, and she stumbled back, unsteady. She looked as though she was going to fall on her ass, and the man reached out, and took her by the wrist. His attempt to keep her steady only resulted in her swaying back towards him, barely catching herself by grasping his shoulder.

“Rangiku, what the hell happened to you? Why did you attack me?!”

“Iba…” she gasped out, staring somewhere past him. “Iba, I can’t see straight…I’m hearing things that aren’t there. I’m even tasting and smelling weird things…”

Iba took a closer look at the parts of her shihakusho that she could see. There was definitely a wound, so she must have been in combat, but a lot of those tears in her uniform looked like they’d been ripped at with teeth, not cut with a blade. Had she bitten herself on her way here?

“You’ve obviously been drugged,” he said. “C’mon, the infirmary is nearby—I’ll get you treated.”

He took the arm he was holding and turned, looping it over his shoulder so that she was leaning her weight on him, and began walking her back the way he’d come. No doubt the others back there would give him hell for trying to leave, but it was fortunate he had. If he hadn’t found her, who knew what could’ve happened?

Iba strode forward, walking back down the street and taking an alley onto a less exposed one. As he slipped past houses with the other lieutenant on his shoulder, the sounds of the noise from the large rebel force faded. It had taken him long enough to hobble here, not being able to perform flash step just yet. He quickened into a half-jog, almost dragging her. He didn’t know if whatever she’d been hit with could kill her, and for that reason, he needed to get her aid with all the more urgency.

Coming up on a street corner, he heard voices. Turning at the wall, he checked, but it wasn’t a soul reaper—that much he confirmed before retreating, as the man’s back had been turned. Iba instead made for a narrow alleyway, trying to balance speed and silence. It wouldn’t do to draw attention just now.

He made steadily eastward at a fast pace. All that he needed to do was get to the infirm. It was true that the fourth weren’t fighters, but the infirmary was, through its other forms of security, easily the hardest place in the Seireitei for enemy forces to get into. If he could just get within its grounds, there was a pretty decent chance they were safe for now…

“Hey! Daishin!”

_Damn…_

Iba broke into a sprint, grunting due to the pain it was causing his injuries, with Rangiku’s feet dragging behind him. He came out on a street he recognized, and turned left, looking in the direction of the infirmary grounds, only for his view to be blocked by someone dropping to the ground from above. The lieutenant stopped short, watching as the man in front of him was joined by another jogging over from the street behind him, which he recognized as the first man he’d seen. He hefted his shikai in front of him, warding off attacks.

“Hang on, man…these two are injured.”

Iba observed the two men over the edge of his pick blade. Both wore raggedy vests with short sleeves, torn hakamas, and clogs on their feet, and both had black markings covering their arms. The man standing to the fore was older, with a beard and sideburns that matched the grey of his messy hair, both with a slight purple tint, and barely-visible wrinkles under his eyes, which were staring hard at him. The man behind him, who the other had called Daishin, was built like a tank. His arms were enormous, as was the rest of him, standing a head taller than the man in front of him. He had a poorly-shaved 5:00 on his lower jaw, with black hair slid back in a series of spikes. His nose looked a little crooked, and his eyes were green. His expression was, if Iba were to hazard a hopeful guess, hesitant.

“True, but…we’re still s'pposed to knock ‘em out.” came the voice of the first man. Iba saw his hand drifting towards one of the two swords on his belt, and then saw a hand flying upward just underneath his own nose, causing him to lean back.

“Sha...Shakkaho!”

Neither man made to move as a fiery orb of red energy was fired from Rangiku’s palm, leaving Iba’s mustache singed. The kido spell missed entirely, destroying a garden some thirty feet away from their targets. At the end of Rangiku’s outstretched palm, he saw another orb of energy attempting to form, but smoking ominously against her palm.

“Rangiku, don’t.” Iba said, a panicking edge to his voice as he watched the two draw their zanpakuto, their minds evidently changed. “You’ll only get in the way! Hado thirty-one: Shakkaho!” he shouted, launching his own fireball.

“_Ensnare, Tsurizao!_”  
“_Sear, __Tōgarashi__!_”

Iba watched the two of them dodge his spell, and he prepared another, feeling an extreme dryness in his throat. How was he going to keep them off of him?

“Shakkaho!”

His fireball flew, but the larger man, his sword now a small knife, caught the blast head on with the blade, causing an eruption of smoke that nonetheless left no mark on him. Iba stepped backwards, trying to adjust Rangiku out of harm’s way and ready his weapon at the same time, watching the man called Daishin spring forward.

Before the distance could be closed, an explosion rang out, and Iba swung his blade wildly, taking several steps back, hyper-aware of the lieutenant whose arm was still around his shoulder.

“Iba!”

Iba lowered his blade by only half an inch. The voice he’d heard. Was that…?

“Hinamori…?”

As the smoke cleared, he saw that it was indeed lieutenant Momo Hinamori, looking…unusually pissed off. Behind her, both enemies had pulled their own weapons up in a defensive stance. Momo was the same, her Tobiume drawn and at the ready, embers still emanating from it.

“You’re so irresponsible.” she chided. Iba winced, knowing what was coming and knowing she was right. “This is exactly what happens when you don’t stay in the infirmary like we tell you to.”  
As he watched, she turned her back on them, brandishing her branched blade at the hostiles. “You two go get treated. Especially Rangiku, since we don’t know what’s wrong with her—Isane will want to study her to see if she can advance treatment on the others. I’ll handle the fight here, now leave.”

He was not in a position to argue, much as he wanted to. He no longer had a reason to doubt Momo’s fighting ability now that she was a kido instructor. But still, although she was inbetween himself and the rebels, the rebels were inbetween them and the infirm. Momo seemed to be able to tell what he was thinking.

“Go! Now!” she said, and he saw her swing her blade again, launching another fireball. As he took off into a run, he saw that her attack landed against Daishin, who had tried to block again only to be knocked backward into his companion.

“Hell yeah!” came the man’s voice, now booming and cheery. “Your attacks are much stronger than theirs were!”

_J__eez, why not just spit on me while you’re at it_, he thought, running past the two towards safety.

* * *

_I haven’t seen or heard from Renji since we left the meeting hall. What could he be up to?_

Byakuya observed his enemies, looking down as he hovered in the air over his squad’s district. One by one, his defeated targets vanished in a flash of green light. Senbonzakura hovered in the air behind him, a white cloud of blades, its intended follow-up sweep proven unnecessary as the rebels disappeared by the dozen.

This was not to say the streets were cleared yet, but he was not worried about the rest. His flash step, annoyed as he was to have to use it at all to dodge attacks from all-but-civilian rebels, took him easily out of reach of the wave of kido spells they were firing off.

_Simple-minded trash…_ he thought. _Why do they continue attacking an opponent so far above their level? Are the smaller spells meant to be used en masse to be more effective? Or are they hoping to distract me from another target? _

A second wave of Senbonzakura sent the rest of the rebels to the ground, and shortly thereafter, they too vanished. Recalling the blades to his side for the moment, he tensed, noticing movement off to his right. The perpetrator was only a hell butterfly, however. Seeing it come closer, Byakuya extended a hand, allowing it to land on his forefinger and play back its message. Captain Hitsugaya’s voice emanated from it.

_“_ _Captain Kuchiki, be on your guard. All of the rebels are employing kido spells and retreating when they take too much damage. I’ve noticed that they tend to move their arms towards their shoulders or chests before they teleport away, so I’ve taken to freezing them so that they can be questioned later. _ _I haven’t been able to locate lieutenant Matsumoto, and I’m worried. She may have run afoul of an ambush, or one of the stronger rebels. I don’t like the tactics being used. Something’s going on under our noses.”_

The black butterfly went silent, beating its wings twice before going idle.

_So Lieutenants Matsumoto and Abarai are both unaccounted for…_ Byakuya thought, before mentally correcting himself: Renji was a captain now, with his own squad. He deliberated for a few moments on what to do next, before choosing to record another message and have it sent to the center district. He needed these kido attacks studied; though they superficially resembled a low-level Bakudo, they were incanted wordlessly, which made him think there must be something special about them. Perhaps if they figured that out, they might also could figure out the kido trap being used to contain the civilians in the north. Not to mention that teleportation kido was highly advanced, and restricted…

“Message for Squad Twelve Captain Akon,” Byakuya said, beginning his transmission. “Prioritize research on any unconscious enemy units; their spellwork is too advanced to have originated with civilians or basic study.”

He let the small creature go with its message, watching it flutter away at a modest pace. It had only gone a mere ten meters, however, when a bright white light glowed around the edges of his vision, and he heard the echo in his head of the one-way call he recognized from a certain telepathy spell.

“_Squad Twelve Captain Akon to all officers: The Research and Development Institute is under siege. I am captured and am being held captive in my quarters; Neither I nor my researchers can help you anymore.”_

The message was alarming in its timing, and its ending was unnerving in its abruptness. Had it been a recording, Byakuya would’ve assumed it meant that Akon had been killed. Tenteikura, though…and he hadn’t heard any sounds of fighting behind the voice. Surely he would have, if the fight were still going on? Whether it meant that the head researcher was simply being held hostage and had found a way to communicate, or was soon going to be dead, it changed the game.

“Underestimating our opponents is a flaw we never seem to overcome…” he muttered to himself, trying to hold back a flush of anxiety. With the fight having been happening for maybe an hour, they were getting better at communicating, but it still bothered him that he only knew the statuses of two captains out of thirteen, and none of the lieutenants. And Rukia was out there somewhere…

He glanced towards the hell butterfly still making its way off, having gained another twenty meters while he’d been listening and lost in thought. One flash step brought him across the butterfly’s path, where he stopped it. Letting it balance on his finger again, he erased the first message, and recorded a new one.

“Hirako, Otoribashi,” he said, “listen in for reports from the Kido Corps. With the SRDI down, they will be our next best option for figuring out the tactics this rebellion is using. I understand the two of you are also close with a former Kido Corps lieutenant. If the New Squad Zero isn’t down here, contact them and urge them to arrive and render assistance _immediately_.”

_And wring their necks for me…_ he thought to himself, furious with the three of them.

* * *

Momo staggered back, her fireball having missed. Her swordplay was much better than it used to be, but she felt her balance leaving her with each step backward as her shikai clashed with the small dagger the bigger man was using.

Fighting two opponents wasn’t easy. The older-looking man’s odd sort of weapon, a small metal rod cut off at one end with a globule of black energy floating in the air above it, made her uneasy. So, she’d chosen to try and keep the two separated, throwing intermittent fireballs from her weapon at him to keep him away from her while she handled the younger, larger man in close-quarters. She fought defensively; having seen tens of dozens of soul reapers already brought in from paralysis earned from only a single slash wound, she had no desire to suffer the same fate.

She flashed backward, trying to keep her distance, flinging a fireball off to the side where she felt the older man’s energy signature. She raised her weapon in time to block the thrust from the brute’s dagger, catching it in one of the prongs of her branched blade.

_Got him!_

She took her first step forward, throwing her foot out and hoping to hit him in the groin with it. Her opponent saw the move coming, and sidestepped, meeting the resistance of his weapon as it was yanked away. The tangle of blades came undone in a shower of sparks, and Momo reeled, not bringing her shikai up in time to prevent his dagger grazing her ear.

Her throat instantly constricted, and tears came to her eyes. The slash to the edge of her ear seared like it was on fire, and she felt her knees shake. Panicking, she lit her blade and slung another fireball, slamming it into him point-blank and following it up by turning on her heel, throwing a second one at the older man with the strange shikai.

She fell to one knee, trying to control her breathing and her reactions to the pain. If she weren’t already used to severe pain, this would’ve been an immense distraction, if not debilitating. _The blade is definitely poisoned_, she thought, although in a sense, this pain was also a relief—none of the patients in the infirm had reported such fiery symptoms when they were hit with paralysis-inducing toxin. So this pain was likely meant not meant as a finisher…

“Aughck!”

The world went away for a few seconds as Momo registered several new sensations: the fiery pain from her ear had spread over her entire front half, and tears overflowed as smoke got in them. She’d been thrown backwards into a low wall, and felt herself crumple to the ground.

_Was that…one of my fireballs?_

She pulled herself up on one knee, wiping soot from her face. Her spiritual pressure field had blocked the brunt of the damage, so she at least still had her flesh intact, albeit she’d lost some of her eyebrows and some of her bangs, as well as part of her shihakusho.

She looked forward, where the older man was holding his weapon out. The odd black nebula hovering near the end of it was giving off a thin, lazy trail of smoke. She thought quickly.

The other man, the one with the knife, was recovering. Momo herself wasn’t the fastest there was, but that mattered less than the speed of her attacks. She allowed a flame to build up in Tobiume, charging up more than double the fire she usually required to conjure a fireball. Unlike the bigger, more thuggish man, the older one seemed more patient, waiting for her to make the first move. Keeping track of both her enemies’ locations, she got to her feet and took off, utilizing flash step to zip up, down, and across the street inbetween them several times. Each time she stopped, she launched a fireball at the older man, managing seven before Tobiume sputtered out.

As she launched her attacks, she carefully observed how he reacted. For the first six, he mimicked her own strategy, flashing out of the way and keeping distance, but on the last one, he didn’t dodge. As she watched, he sidestepped, failing to move entirely out of the way. In a single second, reaching forward with his half-rod, he had seemed to swing the fireball _around_ him. She recognized what was happening—the black globule of energy was like a fishing hook, and as she anticipated, he swung on his heel, lobbing the fireball caught on it back towards her.

She leaped upward, dodging her own re-directed projectile, and having calculated where she would stop when she launched it, heard the satisfying sound of the explosion behind her as she landed, having nailed the larger dagger-wielding man with a fireball for the second time.

“Haruo! What the _fuck_?!”

“Sorry, Dai.” came the older man’s apologetic voice.

Momo raised her blade again, a smile coming to her face. Not only had she felt a sharp dip in the enemy’s pressure field that time, but she had confirmed several things. The way the opponent’s shikai worked, as well as the underlying strategy, and confirmed that there was an upward limit on the more troublesome of the two—definitely in the number of objects it could catch, and possibly in the amount of energy as well. And this meant she could proceed with her specialty without worrying about it back-firing.

“Hggh—!”

The lieutenant turned on her heel, twisting just in time to avoid the dagger as it flew past her head, cutting a tear into the shoulder of her uniform. Turning back to face the other man, she was forced to swing her shikai again.

_Clink! Chingk!_

The bigger man's technique wasn't as clean, but he was stronger and faster. Momo swung wildly, forced to block with one hand for speed’s sake. When she didn't land a deflect fast enough, he brought his foot up against her chest, kicking her back.

“Yegh—g-get off me!”

She had flash stepped backward, but lost her balance, jerked to the side. The other man, Haruo, had grabbed her by the arm, and she felt herself yanked and flung back in the direction she’d come from, and winced, bracing for a direct hit from the fiery poisoned blade.

“Urgh!”

She felt no surge of stinging, burning pain, but she did feel herself hitting concrete. Jerking her head up to get her bearings, Momo saw what had knocked her down was not her opponent, but something small speeding off of a nearby wall, and then a roof top.

_Was that...Soi Fon?_


	10. Flashback 02

_I think outside of Kosuke, I’ve known Kazuo the longest. But that said, I’m not nearly as close to him as that. He and I have always operated on different wavelengths. I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t like me, we just have fundamental differences that keep a rock between us. We’re old friends, but we’ve never been the tightest pair._

_Personally, I’ve never seen a problem with using force to get what I want. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a predator, and I’d never hurt a kid or a frail person. But being a mugger is more lucrative than begging, less vulnerable than legal merchantry, and unlike pickpocketing and sneaking around, I can actually pull it off. And that, I think, is what puts me at odds with my rebellion leader._

_Kazuo is a thief. A pickpocket, a guy who likes not being noticed when he robs you blind. It’s a hard bent in the opposite direction from me. Me, I like getting up in your face and making sure I get everything you have. I like it when people know me, cuz they’re too afraid of me to fuck with me. _ _Or at least that’s how it used to be. Man, at one point I mighta been one of the most thoroughly-avoided assholes in the Rukongai. ‘Course, I learned the hard way that getting that far really hurts more than it helps, because soon enough all your cash targets start running when they see you and the people who don’t are better armed than you are. Soul reapers, that is._

_I’ve never been afraid of them, and in fact I stole an asauchi off of one poor loser sent to dispatch me ages ago. It’s been by my side ever since. Eventually, it bonded to me and became a shikai. I think Kazuo liked what I got from that sword. Something small, painful but never lethal, something that could help me do what I do without seriously hurting anyone. _

_I guess that's another thing that's always kept me from getting into Kazuo's head proper. We're friends, but I've never understood his ideals. You wouldn't think someone who spends his time plotting to overthrow a military society would bother disapproving of a mugger, especially when he's a thief himself. I didn't really get it, at least until the unthinkable happened.  
_

_I guess I had never thought about the bigger picture before. For the longest period--several hundred years, in fact--I had just assumed that the state of the Rukongai in relation to the Seireitei was stable. Shitty, but stable. I had always thought them abusing and neglecting us was just the status quo and could never change. I figured that those of us who were strong enough would make do, and that if you kept to yourself and kept your wits about you, you'd get along okay. Avoid the wrong people, don't associate with bigshot nobles, and keep a weapon on you, and you'll be fine, that sort of thing._

_I don't think most people saw it coming, to be honest. Even Kazuo wouldn't have expected it, but of all the things I saw in his eyes after it happened--rage, murder, grief--surprise wasn't one of them. 28,000 people, taken from their homes and murdered in the middle of the night. Indiscriminately, ruthlessly. It was that that shook me. Made me understand that that force, that amount of people with so much power, could come descending on me, on us, at anytime. And I wouldn't be able to stop it. I wouldn't even register.  
_

_I didn't see him for a few months after that. Instead, I focused on Mikkiko and Ikuo._

_Mikkiko is...let's say my significant other. I've known her for about fifty years, and she's got a heart the size of a mountain. For a long time, the best you could say about us was that we were on-off. There's a connection, but she's always hated me mugging to get by. She cut me out of her life several times, and I'd always worm my way back in. The mass murders brought us closer, but it wasn't in a good way. We clung to each other, terrified, looking for people we knew wouldn't ever hurt us. I had to become, in a sense, the sort of man she'd always wanted me to be, so that we wouldn't both be hysterical wrecks. _

_Ikuo is...well, a kid. Not my kid, and not Mikkiko's kid, either. But he's a kid old enough to understand death and be traumatized by it. He kind of gravitated towards me, I think, because I was a capable adult and his parents weren't around as much. Grief tends to tear families apart. He never spoke about who he'd lost, but I'd catch him mumbling something to someone called Kuroda who wasn't here. Doesn't take a genius to put two and two together.  
_

_He had first found me and started hanging around me when I was wandering around looking for food. I asked him what he was doing out in the woods without a guardian, and he said he was looking for food, like me. I offered to share what I'd trapped and allegedly fished, and we sat down and ate at the edge of a river. 'Shouldn't your parents be in charge of getting food', I'd asked, and I knew I shoulda known better 'cause the answer should've been obvious, but no, both his parents were still alive. Turns out they just spent a lot of time away from the house trying to make ends meet after the mass murders._

_I put my all into cheering the kid up, let my inner dumbass come out while I told jokes and played myself up. I puffed my chest out and exaggerated my own feats so hard he couldn't help but crack a smile and laugh at how fake it was. By the time he got up and had to leave, all the food I had cooked was gone. He'd especially enjoyed the fish, and I sent him home with some and told him to wander around back here if he ever wanted more. _

_Well, unfortunately, I didn't really think about what I was doing. I stole that fish, of course, and the guy I stole it from noticed. When Ikuo came back about a week later, he got caught by an old man who was angry as hell and insisted he'd been the thief. Fuckin' geezer. Kid was so upset with me when I next saw him. Not like I knew the guy or cared, but I stole a fish again, hoping he'd find me. When I saw Ikuo again, I invited the kid over for lunch a lot closer to the nearest river than where I'd met him. Sure enough, the guy strolled right on in. Started yellin' at the kid, and I cut him off, telling him the truth: that I stole it, that I didn't regret it, and that I had no shame about it--and furthermore, I told him he probably knew full well that I stole it and he should shut his gob. Told him he was a cowardly ass for trying to harass some little runt who was hungry instead of a grown man who could dish it out right back._

_About this time, Mikkiko and I were getting closer, so after I had cheered the kid up and sent him back on his way home with a full belly again, I walked home, and she was there. Our living arrangements had never been solidified, but I knew she felt safer around me, so I let her stay whenever she liked. And she showed me this enormous fish, one that had been left sealed up and chilled on our doorstep. She asked what that was about, and I came clean to her about thieving and this Ikuo dude I'd been amusing. She actually perked up, and said she knew who that was._

_"That's Emi's kid, isn't he? I know his parents."_

_She got this real furtive look on her face, so I asked her what was up. Apparently, Ikuro and Emi were so busy lately they just didn't have time to look after their own kid, and told him not to leave the house during the day. According to her, they were off doing something...secretive. Fair enough for them not to tell the kid, but it was odd that they'd hide it from even her. 'So that's why you're not mad about me thieving', I said, and at this point, she looked like she was about to start sweating. Terrible liar and not much better at hiding things, Mikkiko._

_So I insisted she spill what she was thinking about, and she admitted that the real reason she wasn't mad about the stealing was because she'd been doing it, too. I got real shocked when she said this, cuz she's always been so rule-abiding and by-the-book, but she clarified. What she'd been stealing was food, all sorts of it, from houses that "were no longer occupied". With 20,000 homes or more empty after that mass murder, she'd decided it was no good to let the crops and the farm animals go to waste, and had gotten to work feeding the local kids with it, especially the orphans and those with shell-shocked parents. _

_I called her a hero, and she went real red. Me, my heart was bursting. But, there was still the matter of the fish sitting on the table. That it would show up in the time it took me to walk home, must've meant that that old fart--what was his name? He hadn't said--had felt bad about chewing out Ikuo after the tongue-lashing I gave him. I told her as much, and said we'd cook half of it, and she could cook the other half and present it to the Inuzukas as a gift later. _

_Well, I was wrong. Not thirty seconds after we'd seen off that half of the fish to the Inuzukas, who looked exhausted, Old Geezer had come striding up to us again to yell at us. I was weirded out, asking why the hell he was bitching when he was the one who gave it to us. He said he didn't know what the hell I was talking about and kept yelling, and I was fed up. I was about to punch his lights out, but I didn't get the chance. It was Mikkiko who did it. Socked the dude right in the jaw and knocked him on his ass. She was madder than I'd seen her in quite a while. She strode off, and I followed her. Took me a while to get her to calm down, and when she did, she got all quiet. She was understandably freaked out, not just that she'd run into a shithead like that, but that someone apparently knew where we lived and had sent some of his catches to us. Were we being watched?  
_

_"And then there's Emi and Ikuro..." she'd said. When I asked her what was up with them, she said she'd never seen them looking so tired, and she'd seen bruises on them that I hadn't. I started to get worried too, because something weird was going on. We had a lot of questions, but pretty soon, he showed up to answer them._

_Kazuo, that is. He showed up that evening, knocked on our door. When I opened it up, I didn't know what to say. He didn't look any different than the last time I'd seen him, even though it'd been so long. I hugged him right then and there, and he stiffened up. When I let go of him, he told me he had serious things to discuss with us. Said that he'd stolen the fish and left it on our doorstep, and apologized, but also asked to come in._

_Weird thing, seeing Kazuo Zaizen sitting at a table and drinking tea. You don't really picture him doing domestic things. When I think of him, I think of striding down a sidewalk plotting my next mugging while he stakes out homes. Actually, I don't think I ever saw him actually sit down at all before this moment. _

_So he repeats his apologies to Mikkiko, and I can't help but notice the look he's giving her. The stare. Not like he was hot for her, that's not a Kazuo thing either, but more like he was...studying her. Analyzing her. He asks her straight-up if she wants to know what's been going on with Ikuro and Emi, and she takes the bait. According to him, they're so exhausted because they've been doing combat training day and night under one of his friends. Combat training for what, I ask. And that's when he says he's planning a rebellion._

_I gotta sit there for a minute, just stunned. A rebellion against the Seireitei? I'd thought that was just some thing he'd made cracks about as a kid. Never imagined he was serious about it. Was still kind of blowing my mind. And again, Mikkiko surprised me by piping up first. _

_"Kuroda," she'd said. "That's why. He was one of the ones murdered."_

_It made sense. If I'd lost a son to a mass murder, I'd want revenge, too. And Kazuo, he's my friend, but I was skeptical. How the hell were we supposed to take on a military force that powerful? And Mikkiko, he couldn't really expect her to fight, right? But he was serious. More to the point, he wanted us both in the rebellion. He turned his stare on me, and I bent under it and said yes. I'd have said yes anyway, I just didn't know how Mikkiko was going to react. I didn't know if she wanted me away from action like that, and the life-or-death conditions of it. I agreed on the condition that Mikkiko stay out of the action. All three of us agreed on that, but I made sure: I didn't want her participating in any fighting. Kazuo had said that her being involved in a fight was a possibility, but that he had a role suited to her that ensured she'd be able to handle it. I bit my lip, and I wanted to argue, but she spoke over me and said that was fine.  
_

_But he wasn't done with us yet. He had another person he wanted in this rebellion, he'd said, and he looked at me and said he was going to need my help to get him involved. I asked him who, and he said 'Haruo Kamachi'. Turns out that was the name of the old fisherman giving us a hard time. I'd flat-out said no at first. I'd be happy to join; hell, I was getting pretty eager to knock some heads the more I thought about it. But working with a virtual stranger, who up 'til now I'd only seen in arguments. I openly doubted how much of an asset he could be, if Mikkiko could lay him flat. But Kazuo stood firm: I'd be fighting alongside him. And he was going to put me up to training with him, later. _

_I grit my teeth, and sat there fuming while he announced that we had two days to reconsider our decision, before he was going to formally install us and start our own training. When he got up to leave, I followed him out, closing the door behind me. Wanted to raise my voice, but didn't want Mikkiko to hear me. I asked him what the fuck he was thinking, trying to take on the Seireitei. _

_"That's such a weird question." he'd said to me, and I remember how empty of emotion his voice had been. "The Daishin I know would've been itching to plant his boot up Gotei 13 ass."_

_"That woulda been true before they swept in here and slit twenty-eight thousand throats in the middle of the night!"_

_"What, so are you saying you're scared? ...That's cowardly. Those people aren't going to avenge themselves. You, of all people, aren't someone I expected to back down and hide over something like this."_

_The things he was saying didn't faze me. I'd come to terms with it, or so I'd thought. I wasn't going to let him get under my skin like that, especially with the dryness he said those things with. But he spoke over me when I opened my mouth to counter them._

_"Do you even know how that number got spread around? It was me. I snuck into the enemy stronghold and confirmed that number of murders, right in the office of the man who had them carried out. You'd have no idea just how high the death toll is if I hadn't put a number to it for you."_

_My mouth dropped open and stayed that way for a few seconds. "Y-You what? You snuck into the Seireitei?! How did you--"_   
  
_"I'll tell you later, if you're lucky. My point is, the situation hasn't changed, Daishin. Not really. You might be afraid of trying to combat a force like that, but if we want to survive, our only hope is to use that mass murder as fuel. To let it galvanize us. We've always been sitting here at the mercy of those rich idiots behind the wall. All our lives, they could've descended on us and killed us in our sleep, for little reason other than they want to, or their fucked-up government deemed it 'necessary'. Hell, they did it commonly on a smaller scale, using us like disposable alternatives whenever it pleases them. You think this won't happen again, as long as they're in power? You're sitting here with a blade at your throat, Daishin. That's the kind of power they have over you. Over all of us. And if picking up your life, and having the stable home life with Mikkiko and a kid of you're own that you're too prideful to admit you want, with financial security instead of poverty, with life instead of survival, isn't good enough to motivate you? Let me remind you that this can happen again. It will happen again, unless we stop it. You don't have to take revenge for the fallen if you don't want to, that's on me. But if nothing else, I want you to fight, because I saw you with Ikuo. I know that if some harm came to some runt of a kid who was hungry and tired, you'd do whatever you could to prevent it. So I'm asking that of you, now. You're one of the best fighters in the Rukongai. Think of the bigger picture for once, instead of insisting you're better off looking after yourself and the little spaces around you, and use that power to put your foot down, and make sure this never, ever happens again."_

_I had no response for almost a whole minute, and his eyes bored into me the whole time. Painfully bright, blue-green eyes. I hadn't sat there letting him speak because it was polite. His words had gone from bouncing off of me to digging deep into my head. I remember struggling to reconcile this man with the one I thought I remembered, a creepy loner who liked being sinister and sneaky, instead of...a leader. A rebel. I swallowed thickly, and when I did find my voice, there wasn't an option. He hadn't left me one. Even though I knew I could still say no...I couldn't have been that much of a coward. Because he was right._

_"I...I'll do it." I said, mouth dry and eyes blinking rapidly. "I'll do whatever you tell me to, man. I'll even work with that old man. Just say the word."_

_I wished he would smile, or show some sort of relief. That single-minded focus, that stare, was hurting me. "Thank you", was all he said before he turned around. He took one step before the thing I'd almost forgotten to say had come up through my throat._

_"H-hey, man, wait. I-I gotta ask something."_

_"What's that?" _

_"That kid, Ikuo...what's gonna happen to him?"_

_"Daishin, you can't be serious. You really think I'm gonna let him get in on the fighting?"_

_"That's not what I meant, man." I said, regaining control of my voice. "He already lost his brother, and now both of his parents are joining your stunt, here. And you want me and Mikkiko, too. What happens if one of them dies? What happens if I die? Who's he gonna have, then?" _

_I couldn't believe I was saying this about a kid I'd met only three times, who I barely knew anything about. But when I looked in those eyes, way too sad and tired for any kid his age, I knew he didn't need more death in it. I guess he'd pegged me right when he said I was too prideful to admit I wanted to be a dad. I waited a few seconds for Kazuo to answer. Slowly, he turned back to face me._

_"A lot of the rebels I've already gathered have the same fears. If it means this much to you, I'll have Reizo and Junzo work out some extra protection for them, keep a closer eye on them during the rebellion. I wouldn't be so worried about them, if I were you. Same for Mikkiko. And as for you," he said, and I felt that painful piercing stare again, but this time there was something different in his eyes, "fight like you've got nothing to lose. I'm not about to let you die."_

_Then he turned around and walked off. Flash step took him away once he reached the woods, carrying him out of sight._

_We're still friends, then, I remember thinking. For him to show up like this after we'd drifted apart, and then consign me to some rebellion he was cooking up...I'd wondered for a moment. Just for a moment, if, even though we hadn't been the tightest pair, if I'd been mistaken in thinking I really registered as a friend to him. I was sure of it, now. And if he really meant that...then I could follow his orders to the letter. Kazuo was a confusing person at the best of times, but he wouldn't make a promise like that if he didn't intend to keep it. _

_Training with that geezer was difficult and I did it bitterly, but I managed it over the next few months. And for the next ten years after that, I was a rebel. And now that it's finally happening, I can fight like I have nothing to lose. _

* * *

_"You're waiting for something, aren't you?"_

_I don't like being bothered by others. I've always been a solitary soul. So you wouldn't think that someone like me would've ever tried to join the soul reapers. But it happened, way back when I was younger. Even most people who know me don't know about it, given how I keep to myself. _

_"You got kicked out," that little runt had said, so many decades ago. The bluntness of it had made me bristle. He was a patient, observant one, that kid, too much so. I'd noticed it before, which was why I'd taken him on and tried to teach him how to fish. And boy, was he lousy at it. Couldn't get anything to bite, and he finally got fed up with fishing on the pier of the river, and started sitting at the edges of a creek to catch 'em by hand. Nuts. Absolutely idiotic. And yet, he didn't go hungry. Guess he liked going to the fish instead of waiting for them to come to him._

_I should've seen the signs then. He was like a predator stalking prey in everything he did. Eventually, I worked up the nerve to ask how he knew I'd been a Shin'o Academy trainee, let alone been kicked out for that leg injury. He simply answered that he'd seen the way I threw my fishing rod, and it looked familiar. Like a sword swing. I huffed, and clammed up. _

_Kazuo was a kid back then, and he wandered a lot. You could never track him down when you wanted to, and he could be in any of the 320 districts--even the roughest ones. I had to wonder what a little kid with no parents and no guardians to speak of was doing traveling that much. _

_"Seeing." he said, when I asked him._

_I never thought of combat as something I was especially grand at, but I like to think I did okay while I was in schooling for it. Was a pretty good swordsman, and I had decent marks at kido, instead of leaning towards one or the other like most students did. But it fell apart on my first real assignment. No one else had trouble, but I was the one that got ambushed by a thug. Stronger than the rest. Reiatsu was higher than mine. Knocked my lights out and fractured my leg, then stole my asauchi out from under me. Even left me alive. Shameful. _

_Didn't matter that I was the only one who was handling an opponent stronger than chump change. Didn't matter that I was still the most advanced guy in my group. All that mattered was that I was the only one limping back to the Academy, and without my sword, no less. Injury would've healed within the month, so I knew it wasn't that I had been wounded too severely to go on. I'd lost a sacred blade, or some such shit, and I'd also made the Academy's forces look weak. So I had to go. Released, sent back home._

_Eh. I wasn't bitter for long. Plenty of people got worse sob stories. 'Sides, it never meant all that much to me to be a soul reaper, just a higher salary. It was just the more lucrative option. And after that failed, well, I became a fisherman. Much quieter life, but I was good at it. Well, I say I was good. Truth is, I'm the best. Kind of a boring thing to be the best at, unless you live in the Rukongai, and food is a very high priority. _

_Even though I'm a solitary person, I got known pretty quickly once I started bringing my hauls to the market. People would learn the times I came and start swarming the vendor stalls looking for me. Given that I knew everything there was to know about fishing, both from family secrets passed down from my dad, and my own research, I could outcatch pretty much anyone, and the amount of food I brought...well, apparently it was a big deal, and fed a lot of families. I caught big enough fish that they could satisfy a household, and I caught enough of them that I could afford to sell them for cheap. It kept me pretty well-off, for a long while. _

_I was good enough that I could teach, so after I caught that kid Kazuo stealing my catches the one time, I offered to do so. And so it became that I learned he and I were never quite synergized. He was a well-meaning kid, just off-putting. It was kinda like...what's the opposite of charisma? He had this unique ability to unsettle you, even though he wasn't doing anything wrong. I was glad when I found him making friends with some kid named Kosuke. And, well, I know how that ended up._

_They were the the closest friends I'd ever seen, skinny little creep Kazuo and strong, handsome Kosuke. Just as they were starting to grow into young men, Kosuke went off to join the soul reapers. Least, that's the last I heard of him. Didn't keep too much of an ear out. But, after this, Kazuo stopped coming to fish. For a little while, I thought I'd never see him again. I knew he was still active. A kid like him wouldn't be easily killed, not even by the nastiest the Rukon had to offer._

_Kosuke served the Seireitei for, what, a hundred and fifty years? Hundred and sixty? A long tenure, given what he'd eventually become. From what I understand now, I think they kept in contact that whole time. Grew up together, somehow, even though they didn't have constant contact anymore. But like I said, they dropped off my radar for most of that time._

_Then, came the slaughter. _

_Not the 28,000, that came later. I think, according to the souls that were entering the afterlife around this time, it was the 1910s, or around that time. People thought it was the second coming of The Beast--Zaraki, that is. And those people were idiots, cuz the carnage only lasted a night, not two hundred years. But it was brutal. A path carved through the Rukongai by a soul reaper, indiscriminate slaughter of all those in his path. A dam broken, causing a flood and killing even more people. And the most unbelievable thing about it, was that they said Kosuke had done it. _

_I didn't believe it for a minute, of course. But it's not like I could've done anything about it. I had to wonder what poor Kazuo was thinking. But I didn't have a lot of time to worry about other people. See, that chaos affected me, too. After the flood, and the destruction, fishing became almost impossible, even for me. I wasn't the poorest guy by a long shot, but my savings quickly ran out when I put them all into rebuilding my little house, pier, and shed. I was sent spiraling into poverty I'd never thought I'd understand. After that, with what little fish I could catch, I couldn't donate to the market anymore. Had to look out for myself, first. _

_I never felt safe from that night forward. It's one thing to live through a disaster like that, and quite another to live through it, and every few nights, feel something watching you from the woods for a month and a half. _

_It was a few months before things changed for the better. A nobleman visiting the Rukongai for 'curiosities' saw me walking home from what was left of the market. Ran up to me, claiming to know who I was. It was like a miracle, when he started chattering, asking me about all the things I could catch, claiming a tattoo I had was of a fish that was sacred to his family (it wasn't) and that my earring must surely be a scale from a rare specimen (it wasn't). Like a miracle, when he offered me big cash for a very hard-to-catch fish found only in this area so he could have jewelry for a woman he wanted to woo. _

_It was hard work. Actually, it was a nightmare. The specimen he was after was difficult enough to find before the dam broke and destroyed the ecosystem, and afterwards, it was a hellish challenge. It took me a week of fishing to get one, and then I had to carve it up for the scales, not to mention an internal organ that was supposed to help virility. Huge fish. Woulda fed several. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who knew that, even though I tried to keep this on the down low, cuz after I made the first sell, portions of my catch started disappearing. And they kept disappearing, for ninety-odd years._

_By the time of the Ryoka invasion, I was getting on in years. I think in the world of the living, I'd be about mid-fifties. Still pisses me off when people call me an old man. Well, I wasn't half as old as some of the geezers still walking in this place, and I could prove it. I got my wooden katana out, and started practicing again. I guess the occurrence of such a huge conflict within Soul Society stirred something up in me. What with that happening, I guess I got a little defensive. Wanted to be ready if I ever needed to beat someone's ass to keep myself safe. Well, that was a lie. But I wasn't going to admit the truth to myself._

_I think, for someone my age and out of practice, I was good. And I got spurred to practice more, when the Espada war and mass murders happened, not to mention the Quincy war. And more beyond that, once I started seeing familiar faces. _

_I'm a fringe character. Not an important guy, not a super powerful one, not one worth all of this attention. So why was I getting that creeping shudder up the back of my neck again? Why, decades after it had stopped, did I get the sensation that someone was watching me out of the woods again?_

_I was still selling the fish, of course. All that meat, gone to waste, month after month. Demand had gotten pretty high back in the day, as the word of sexual prowess caused by an infusion of "ancient" fish guts into one's food spread among the young dumbasses of the Seireitei, and the new fashion was a fish scale earring. Both of these went out of style a couple years after I started catching, possibly due to an illness suffered by my client, but I maintained the business nonetheless, since someone always wanted to buy. People had long since learned to stop bothering me about my fishing for the market. I think I passed into the local village's legend circulation, which was kind of funny, considering that ninety years wasn't that long for a soul like me. But then again, a lot of people who had used to buy my fish were either getting on in years themselves, or dead at Seireitei hands. _

_I kept up my practice, telling myself it was just to keep myself safe, to keep myself in shape. I wasn't letting myself hear either of the real reasons. _

_And then I finally found that runt eating fish I'd caught._

_I should have figured he was too young to have been the one stealing my food for almost a century. But all I could think was that I finally stumbled on the guy making a fool out of me for that amount of time. That's my flaw, I hang onto stuff for way too damn long, even when I should've accepted it by then. I yelled at him somethin' fierce and told him not to ever think about going near my catches again. Didn't see him for a while after that, until I found him eating, guess what, my fuckin' fish again, this time with some older dude who might've been his dad._

_'Cept, this wasn't any ordinary dude. He was familiar. I won't say my blood ran cold, but I definitely paused when he faced me and piped up. And he chewed me out, and confessed to thieving, and I stalked off when he got up to his feet. Big dude. Wasn't gonna push it. Could that have been who I thought it was? _

_My leg seemed to hurt when I stalked off home. My fish didn't vanish again for the week after. But then it happened again, the week after that, and still I hadn't caught the guy. Surely I wasn't that much of an idiot, that I couldn't manage to catch some 95kg guy stomping around and taking my hard-earned catch for his own. But I didn't. And even though I didn't, I didn't give up, either. Somethin' about bein' shamed by that dude set me off, so I wandered around with my eyes peeled until I finally found him again._

_I got knocked on my ass by his little girlfriend for trying to start shit again. If I'd had my bokken, she'd have been sorry. But I went home wondering what I was going to do about this._

_Turns out, I didn't have to think about it long, 'cause that's when he showed up again. Kazuo._

_I felt it again that night. Someone was watching me from the woods. And me, I was fed up. Pissed off for the last time that week, and I stomped out into my yard, bokken in hand, and yelled out into the darkness for whoever it was to quit hiding and come on out. And wouldn't ya know it, that actually worked. A silhouette came out from the trees behind my house and started walking towards my house, and I'll admit I got scared. Real scared. He stopped just short of the lamp light hanging from my porch, but my eyesight ain't that pathetic, and figuring out who it was didn't make me any less scared._

_It's funny, the things you only make sense of once they're in front of you. I realized I'd seen this guy walking through the street every once in a while for the past few months, maybe even years. But it had never registered to me that he looked familiar. Now that he was at my home, and staring me in the face, I wondered how I ever could have taken him for just another person in the road, rather than Kazuo Zaizen. _

_"I need to talk to you."_

_His voice wasn't anything like I remembered. It was deep, and rough, the rasp of somebody who didn't speak often. _

_"You need to get the hell away from my property, is what you need. Who the hell are you?"_

_"You're a bad faker, Haruo. Right now is a critical moment. Put your sword away, so I can treat you like an old acquaintance, and not an enemy."_

_Something about when he said my name cracked my defenses. I didn't want to think of him as scary. And I couldn't deny who he was, and that I'd once played teacher to him. I hate those eyes of his. Always seemed to have a shadow over them, and in the light of the porch lamp, they seemed to almost glow. They burned through me. The tip of my sword hit the floor. He walked forward slowly. Can still remember wondering how he could walk over those wooden steps without making a sound. A master thief. I believed him when he admitted to taking the fish._

_"You're waiting for something, aren't you?"_

_I didn't know how to respond. I felt a lump in my throat. What was I this nervous about?_

_Somehow, he got in my house, and he talked. He asked. He quizzed. He picked at my brain._

_"Why did you sell the fish to that nobleman? You could've sold that at the market. Better yet, sold a dozen smaller fish there."_

_I gave him my excuses. That that wasn't feasible after the devastation that soul reaper had caused, and that a man has to look out for himself before anyone else. The words seemed to dry my mouth out even further each time I spoke. He wasn't interested in the initial reason, though. He wanted to know why it was so important to me to keep up that market for some idiot's half-baked scheme to impregnate the local debutante, or some hooker's earrings. Why I kept hunting that one, particularly rare fish for such a small audience, long after the ecosystem had renewed itself from the destruction. _

_I didn't have an answer, so he moved on to the next question. Why had I started practicing swordplay again? Again, I didn't really have an answer. Not one that I could vocalize properly, anyway. I mumbled something about hard times and danger, not even a whole coherent sentence. I was still keeping up my kendo, and my fishing practices, even though the Quincy War that had happened a few months ago had annihilated all possible audiences. Why hadn't I returned to the market, he asked, when desperate people were trying to stay alive in the midst of almost thirty thousand being slain in the middle of the night?_

_"You're a coward." he'd told me. "I knew you held on to memories and grudges almost as long as I do...but I'd thought maybe, just maybe, you wanted to show those nobles what for. But no, you're kissing their asses, aren't you?"_

_Was it really what he told me? Was I really still clinging on to some hope that I'd get noticed as a swordsman and allowed back into the Shin'o Academy, and then become a soul reaper again? Was my pride that sore and petty? And when I tried to ask him this, he shook his head. _

_"You're scared." he'd said. "You want to be on the side that isn't getting cut down...don't you?"_

_He saw through me. Every time he looked at me, he saw through me. Saw all my emotions, saw the gears in my head working even when I didn't. He'd seen me chewing out the kid, and the big thug man, and his girlfriend, and he'd seen me practicing kendo. Guessed that I was soon going to start practicing kido again, too. And he was right. I had somehow been so fringe, been so out of the action, so off to the side, that I'd skated by and survived two slaughters in the past one hundred years. And I hadn't done anything to help the residents pick back up and try to survive again. _

_"You're waiting for something, aren't you?"_

_Waiting for the third slaughter to come, I'd thought. He seemed to read my thoughts as they happened in my head. Waiting for some nobleman to see the bokken on my hip when I deliver him his goods, so he can recommend me to Shin'o, and I can go back to Seireitei and be safe, and not be culled with the rest, not have to be responsible for them, not have to see the hunger in the eyes when I pass them with food in my hands that they can't eat._

_Maybe this was why I was so solitary. 'Cuz if anyone confronted me about this, I wouldn't be able to talk back. Hell, I couldn't even properly shame a mugger for taking my fish. And Kazuo told me, he told me it wasn't about the fucking fish. It was about power. Personal power, people power. He called me someone who had neither._

_"What? And you do?"_

_He didn't answer, but I wouldn't have blamed him if he said yes. As it turned out, I'd later find out that he did. At that moment, though, I wanted to know why he was trying to make me have this whole shameful experience. What good would it do? What good would it do to change it?_

_That's what I was waiting on, he told me. I wanted something to do to change my situation, and he was going to give it to me._

_He told me up front that yeah, Daishin was that dude who cracked my leg and took my zanpakuto a couple centuries ago. And I was going to train with him, for a big fight. One where we'd take it to the Seireitei and fill our bellies, and never worry again once we won._

_I gritted my teeth. "You want me to look that fucker in the eye and let him beat me up with my own--"_

_"If it were yours, you'd still have it." he cut me off. "I'll provide you a new weapon. Until then, swallow your pride. I'll see you in three days. Practice your kido in the meantime."_

_And three days later, I saw him again, with that fuckin' thug in tow. He handed me a brand-new asauchi, cheerfully admitting that stealing these things was nothing to him anymore and he had a whole stash ready for use.  
_

_It wasn't a week of training, or a month. It was ten years. It was bitter work, and we carved each other up a lot. I used to blast the shit out of him--started practicing higher-ranked spells just so I could get the asshole back for cheating with that damn stinging blade of his. That pride of mine was a bitter, ugly, sour pill, but it went down month by month. Eventually, I sought out to ask Daishin why exactly he was going through with this._

_"Kazuo's my friend, and if he says this is going to work, it's going to work. And I have nothing to lose."_

_What a weird thing to say. He had nothing to lose? He had his skin, laden with muscle and tattoos, all easily torn open by blades and spirit energy. He had that girl of his, who looked way too fragile even though she was being trained in swordplay too, and was quite the spitfire, I hear. He had the Inuzukas, who were becoming fast friends with him thanks to his bond with Ikuo. I was the one who didn't have anything to lose by joining this crackpot rebellion. Yet I was the one showing the most resistance to it. _

_Sometimes I wish I had paid more attention to that boy in his youth. Maybe I'd have learned something if I'd listened like Kosuke did. I was too afraid of a perceptive child, I guess. Studying him now though...I could probably still learn something, right?_

_I decided to follow this boy's model. I found out that, when I picked up the courage to talk to him, he wasn't so different from that creepy little kid I used to teach how to fish. Still creepy, but good-hearted. And when I got over my nerves to chat with him, why, keeping up a conversation with Daishin seemed downright easy by comparison. I think...well, we weren't friends, but we were definitely working better after the first two years than we had been before._

_"Can I call you Dai?" I asked._

_"Only if I can call you Gar." he said._

_Asshole. _

_"You're waiting for something, aren't you?"_

_Yeah, I' was waiting for something. Was waiting for my chance to do my part. To make change. To free myself from this cycle, this hellhole we call a civilization. I gotta work harder. I'm not waiting around anymore. The last ten years was long enough. My freedom ain't gonna come to me on its own, I gotta grab it myself. It's time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Daishin Miuchi** is one of two auxiliary commanders--equivalent to lieutenant position and strength--under rebellion leader Kazuo Zaizen. One of Kazuo's oldest allies and an excellent fighter, one able to prove himself against soul reapers very early on, there was no question he'd eventually end up in this position, despite limited speed, range, and an absolute lack of knowledge on kido worse than that of Kazuo's own. His zanpakuto is 唐辛子 (_Tōgarashi_, “Chili Pepper”) and takes the form of a large shank with a crooked wooden handle, overall shaped like a pepper. The release command is "sear", and it secretes capsaicin, the key toxin in peppers that makes them taste "hot" and also a key ingredient in pepper spray. A small cut is enough to dispatch a person long enough for him to take whatever of theirs he wants, and once he leaves with his stolen haul, he can deactivate the effect. Humbled by the slaughters and now working for Kazuo, he hopes to put aside mugging forever, albeit he never discovered much that he was good at besides fighting and burglary. Nonetheless, he is hardly a sneak, and someone Kazuo trusts implicitly.
> 
> **Haruo Kamachi** is one of two auxiliary commanders under Kazuo Zaizen. He is one of the oldest leading participants in the rebellion, having been an adult when Kazuo and Kosuke were children. Though he was one of the last lieutenants recruited, his loyalty was hard-won and is considered secure. What he lacks in combat ability due to incomplete training and two centuries of neglect of his skills, is easily made up for with his creative and sly shikai. His is 釣り竿 (_Tzurizao_, or “Fishing pole”) and its release command is "ensnare". It transforms the sword into a small hollow rod hiding a retractable spike. At the very end of this spike, held in space whether it is retracted or not, is a globule of gravitational pull. This small well of gravity "hooks" anything it comes into contact with, whether matter or energy, for Haruo's own use, usually slinging it back at its sender, and commonly complicating matters of melee confrontation. Together, he and Daishin form an active/passive duo much the same as other auxiliary commander pairings. While Daishin is an active, close-up combatant, Haruo hangs back and supports, going in for attacks only when the moment is right.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Daishin's _Tōgarashi_ is one of the weapons I'm most proud of, because it was a concept that hadn't been done before (at least to my knowledge) without having to be incredibly complex. Haruo's _Tzurizao_ was based on a modified shikai that was originally intended for Ane, back when she was a much more complex fighter and was set to have a fight of her own. Once I'd set it in stone, though, the fights that he and Daishin would work together on were the first I wrote, and in particular, him catching a knife on his shikai and swinging it like a lash was an image that wouldn't leave me until I wrote it in.


	11. Close Saves

_"Huhgh!"_

Lisa swung, knocking back an attacking Emi, who was still using her curious combined weapon. Despite the increase in attack power, she was still significantly slower than the captain. Lisa still felt like she could win this fight, if she kept her guard up. She still had about three minutes left on her Hollow mask out of the five she'd practiced hard for. She leaped, swinging her weapon down on the still-recovering Emi, who pulled up the bizarre double-shikai to block it. Lisa landed hard, and pushed, trying to push the woman's weapon aside.

_"Ikuro! Help me!"_

Lisa looked past the cannonball end of the weapon, to where Ikuro was stirring, looking at their fight, but he didn't appear to be contributing any more than before. A flash of red caught her eye, and she turned her head in the opposite direction, where the counterweight end of the weapon was glowing red. As she watched, waves of that red energy, one by one, slid down the length of the weapon towards the cannonball, which also started to glow. Underneath her, the entire weapon shuddered, and her own was repelled by a sudden burst of strength from her opponent.

_She waited until she was pressured to show her full strength. I've been giving her too much time to maneuver. I need to finish this before--_

_BOOM!_

Lisa barely held her weapon up in time, as the cannonball end of Emi's weapon went rocketing past her._ Damn it, she's sent that thing flying again_. No matter, she had already memorized the attack patterns here. A slight improvement for speed and force was easily accounted for. Lisa performed a spin, striking out with her polearm to keep her opponent off her while she turned on her heel, anticipating the cannonball's return trip. She saw through her visor that its impact had decimated yet another hapless, uninhabited building around them. Soon there wouldn't be any of those left.

It came, as she expected, and she was ready. Putting more power into her swing than last time, she performed a wide floor-to-ceiling sweep with her spade, striking the cannonball head-on and sending it hurtling back, up and into the sky, buying her a few precious seconds in which to continue hammering her enemy. Twisting again, she lunged, going for a stab, pushing yet more of her power into it. Her blade scraped off of the other pole, but with no large blunt object to block her strike, it caught her opponent across the face, sending her flying backward. Lisa lunged, ready to pounce on this opportunity.

"Whoa--!"

Another spin barely took her out of the way of the cannonball, which had returned from behind her much earlier and much faster than expected. Her feet shuffled as it buried itself some feet from her in a crater, having landed hard enough to shake the earth and knock her off-balance.

_That was way too fast_, she thought, whirling to try and strike at the weapon's owner before it she directed it to a new assault. _Is it possible she's been toying with me this whole time? ...No, I'd definitely be able to tell if she was holding back by that much..._

Her strike failed to land, and her balance was beginning to slip. Lisa barely adjusted in time to catch the counterweight end of the enemy's polearm across her shoulder instead of her masked face. This time, though, she managed to be ready for the cannonball, as it sped out of its crater at high speed, deflecting it just slightly off of her own weapon so that it sped straight through a shingled rooftop behind her.

She and Emi entered a sort of dance, two long pole weapons flashing and bouncing off of one another, occasional swipes and kicks being taken, both trying to land hits quickly to wear the other down and get that one critical strike in. Lisa leapt back when the recall came, and the cannonball came hurtling back to its launching end right through where she'd been a split second earlier. She then jumped, leap-frogging it as it was shot back at her with only another split-second's pause. Now was her chance! Her opponent was open, and she went for a vicious thrust of her monk's spade, straight to the face--

"Aaugh!"

A weight of immense power and speed had struck her right in the back, and for a moment, she blacked out, awake but unable to process anything. Lisa felt like her spine had been broken, but surely if it had, she wouldn't be in this much pain. She had to shake herself to reclaim awareness of her surroundings, and then to pull herself to her feet. She had crashed through something, or rather, the cannonball had carried her straight through something, which turned out to be the wall of a deserted home. Roof tiling dropped down on her head and she coughed up dust, the offending instrument already away from her.

Something was definitely off. As she had initially understood this weapon, it fired with extreme force in a single line, and then had to return to its 'launcher' along the same line, like a piston, or at least had to be thrown and recalled in straight paths even if the recall presented a different angle. But she cursed herself for being too slow to realize that this error had been intentionally instilled on Emi's part. The direction that the cannonball had struck her from was completely different from the one she remembered it firing in. _She can fire it a second time while it's mid-flight, and change the angle that way... _If this really was the case, victory was no longer assured to her as a mere eventuality. Even with one of her opponents down, she was still fighting a two-on-one fight. And the time on her mask was ticking down with each passing second..._  
_

Lisa turned on her heel as the sound of more debris falling signaled behind her, and for the first time, Lisa felt a twinge of fear. She disliked it--a captain should have no room for anything in her heart but pure drive to defeat the enemy. Her opponents were so sly; even after giving the wife credit for the ferocity of her attacks, she hadn't anticipated this many nasty surprises in a row. There was a curious sound from behind the pile of wood, along with a hint of red light. As she processed the sound of drumbeats, Lisa realized her opponent was charging up a strong attack again. She had an opponent.

Instead of throwing herself back into the fray, she hefted Haguro Tonbo over her shoulder in a javelin toss carry, bracing herself, one leg forward, before throwing it as mightily as she could. It crashed through the remains of the wall, straight towards where she saw the light emitting from. As she expected, her weapon met the enemy's head-on, the two of them bouncing off of each other. With a burst of flash step as fast and far as she could muster, she lunged, feeling the breeze as the blunt weapon passed by her with a lot of force still remaining. She landed a powerful kick with the back of her heel, feeling resistance and then give as she finally got her opponent sprawled on her back.

Recollecting Haguro Tonbo to her hand, she had a second to see that her opponent's nose was obviously broken and bleeding. Emi was getting back up, but Lisa turned away from her, ready to deflect the weapon again as yet more red light entered her peripheral vision--but no cannonball met her spade. Instead, a cloud of red ash broke over her. She recognized it as a kido spell exploding against her weapon. Swinging her spade, she peered in the direction the Shakkaho had come from. Ikuro was back on his feet, panting heavily and holding his hands in the appropriate spellcasting form.

She adopted a wide stance, holding her weapon so as to block an attack from either angle, swallowing her anxiety. Emi was getting up--where was the cannonball?

Before she could consider the variables, there was a crash of sound from overhead. Lisa at first lifted her weapon, thinking that the weapon that had caused so much trouble to her was attacking yet again. But as she looked up, she realized this wasn't the case. Up in the sky, she saw a wave of energy bursting out from a central point, clouds spreading from its wake. These clouds were green, however, a vivid, bright green.

_Someone's interfering in the fight. Should I retreat?_

As she watched, liquid crashed down, the same color, and the individual raindrops seemed to be glowing, though this didn't help the matter of visibility. Her ability to see her opponents, sharp but limited behind her mask, suffered, as they were hidden by a curtain of rain, as did her ability to hear them over the drumming of the droplets onto the ground. But she didn't need to do either to feel the effects of the rain. Her clothes were very quickly soaked through, and her hair became matted and heavy. Uncomfortable though it was, she felt her fatigue leaving her, and felt her cuts and scrapes closing and healing over. Even her internal stress from using her Hollow Mask seemed to be blunting and easing off. And her opponents were likely undergoing the same response.

_That isn't a very good strategy_, she thought. _Yeah, the enemy is back to full strength, but so am I. And now I'm familiar with their battle strategies, so I'm not susceptible to surprises._

But this was the last thought she had time to think. There was another boom of thunder overhead, and she looked up again--was the enemy perhaps going to try and strike her with lightning? And as she watched, satisfied her opponents had not moved, she saw the clouds transformed by another wave spreading from the storm's epicenter. The green transformed into white, but not the white of a typical cloud--murky and liquid, and she thought she saw bubbles expanding within the cloud. The rain, like the clouds, changed color too, and then--

Lisa shrieked--the rain had gone from soothing to scorching! It burned at her, singed her, and she saw her vision being thrown into a clouded blur as she felt her mask flaking away bit by bit. _Quincy energy_, she realized, as she fell to her knees. What felt like a toxic chemical burned at her flesh as her Hollow mask disintegrated bit by bit, before fracturing and falling away completely, hitting the ground just in time to dissolve into nothing.

The pain was fierce, and it was everywhere. She felt her energy and spiritual pressure field, both slowly rejuvenated with the green rain from earlier, draining rapidly as the Quincy energy in the water ate away at them.

_How did this happen?!_ She tried to rationalize past the pain, nearly collapsing but managing to fall to only one knee. _The way they reacted to my Hollow mask--did they plan this? Or did I give myself away?_

She dug Haguro Tonbo blade-first into the ground, refusing to be so easily defeated, but a disturbance rang out past the drumming of the rain on the ground. She was being rapidly worn away, but her opponents were fully healed and wouldn't be poisoned the way she was. She need to do _something_.

"Bankai!" she heard the woman shout, and as she looked up, she saw red light glowing through the white rain: the husband's weapon was sending waves of red energy down its length again, powering up the wife's launching weapon. "_Shinoeka!_"

There was a flash of red--no, blue?--light, and Lisa had only time to register that the shape of the launching end had changed. She wasn't fast enough to keep it from striking her dead-on, and her vision went black.

* * *

_Boom._

Nanao looked up, towards the ferocious fighting in the distance. She hadn't heard from Rukia for some time, and wondered if she were the one creating the chaos a little too close to the infirm. She saw smoke, and squinting closer, appeared to be seeing flames. Perhaps it was Momo, then? Rukia and Isane both used ice powers. If that was the case, she hoped Momo would be okay. Not that she doubted her ability, as Momo's skills were enough that she now taught alongside Nanao herself at the kido corps, but this was a large-scale conflict. Surely, if she'd remained okay during the Blood War, she could handle this? She turned her attention back to her task.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Nanao was several dozen feet off of the ground, kneeling atop the gigantic kido structure in which what looked to be half the Seireitei's population was imprisoned. Hundreds, probably thousands, of people filled the streets below her beneath the canopy of green energy, all of them murmuring among themselves, and quite a few of them now peering up and pointing at her. Her various attempts to dissolve this barrier had so far proven fruitless, and the only damage being inflicted was in her pride. Hanki hadn't worked, nor had any other methods of destroying the barrier, but at least she knew why: it was a double-layer field, with the energies in both fields spinning in opposite directions, yet kept in place somehow. When she tried to dissolve the barrier with energy spinning in the opposite direction of the first layer, the second layer repelled it and the first immediately healed over.

When she next looked down, she saw people trying to get her attention. Although she could hear through the barrier, so many people were talking that she couldn't make out what any individual voice was being said to her.

"What is it?" she called below her. "What are you trying to tell me?"

There was chaos for a few moments, but eventually the audience beneath her began pointing, aiming their fingers both upward and along the street. More people responded, throwing their hands out to try and direct her. Standing up, Nanao kept her eyes trained on the civilians, attempting to follow their directions. She was led down the street, and made to turn left and right several times. Eventually, she reached an area where the people within the barrier were simply pointing straight up at her. Confused, she looked around, but saw nothing except the expanse of green energy she stood on. However, once she turned her eyes upward, she saw something about five feet ahead of her, embedded in the energy field.

Stepping carefully closer, she observed that what she was seeing were two long, thing rods, each one about a foot and a half, maybe two feet, long. They were placed in the same area, touching so as to almost be mistaken for one rod, and furthermore, they weren't actually embedded in the energy field. When she risked a closer look, she saw that each rod was hollow. The energy field, which at first seemed to bend up and over them, as well as under them, was actually coming from inside them. Both were producing energy flow from their top and bottom ends, which coalesced with each other and created a seeming single field.

Would it be safe to remove them? Both rods were hidden behind the energy field, but there was a small area above the field where only a single layer of energy was present. maybe using hanki this close to the source...  
  
It was worth a shot. Nanao prepared her spinning kido plane and wrapped it around her hand, placing it against the field directly above where the rods were producing it. At first, it seemed to work. Her hand pierced the single-layer area where the fields had not yet met as one, and she was able to touch the metal rod producing it. However, the instant she did, a small spark of electricity occurred. She yanked her hand back, unsure. Trying it again, this time she was able to wrap her fingers around the thin piece of metal, but it began to vibrate underneath them. As she pulled, and attempted to separate it from the other one, it began to glow yellow, then red. More arcs of electricity bounded over the field, and Nanao withdrew her hand sharply, letting it settle back into place for fear that it might explode in her face.

She looked down at the civilians, who were peering up at her with rapt attention. She couldn't fail them now. If it meant that she had to take some damage, well, she'd just have to deal with it. Accepting some injury to free captive citizens was a sacrifice that would be expected of her position. Taking a deep breath, she tried again, piercing the barrier and grabbing hold of the rod. She put her other hand over her face and closed her eyes, attempting to protect herself, and could see a vivid red glow as she committed to pulling the rod free.

There was a flash of green light, and Nanao yelped.

But she didn't feel any damage to herself. Nothing throwing her backwards, or burning or, or sending shrapnel into her. Slowly lowering her arm from over her face, she surveyed her surroundings, and gasped.

She was no longer above the energy field, nor could she even see it. In fact, she didn't think she was even in the same part of the city. She must've been teleported somewhere.

"Where the hell did I end up...?" she wondered aloud.

"An alleyway off of the southern Main Street, in the Tenth Division grounds."

Nanao whirled around, and her eyes went wide.

"You! I know you!"

But she didn't have time to stop the attack that was headed straight for her.

* * *

Soi Fon was speeding westward. Things didn't look good. She was heading towards the Eleventh Division's district, where fighting was a matter of pride and fun.

She had never liked the Eleventh Division, had always derided it, and felt disgusted that her own area of responsibility was situated right next to a division whose approach towards battle was the exact antithesis of her own. However, there was no denying that its leader, Kenpachi Zaraki, was a good meterstick by which to measure a threat. The sheer magnitude of that brute's spiritual pressure was absurd, and his lack of control over it meant that his presence could be felt the Seireitei over, even before he took off his restraining eyepatch. She was doing some calculations in her head, based on what she had felt from this direction and what she knew of Zaraki's fighting style.

Zaraki enjoyed a long, drawn-out fight, and was willing to handicap himself however it took to achieve that. Thus, he only showed his full strength if an opponent could handle it, thus at least captain-level strength and above. However, his spiritual pressure signature had faded only two or three minutes in. And that alone would've been enough to call all available captains' attention to this area, but for the way that it had happened. Surely, any being capable of besting Zaraki before the three minute mark was either overwhelmingly powerful, or a skilled assassin. This made herself the best choice to follow-up and both analyze and potentially defeat such a being. But something was still off. These conclusions would be solid, had Zaraki's spiritual pressure actually _vanished_. That wasn't the case; rather, she had felt it rapidly fading, as if moving at high speed away from the battle site. That was...confusing, so say the least. The only conclusion she could draw on _that_ was that Zaraki had retreated, but that would be impossible. It wasn't a word in Zaraki's dictionary. He'd sooner lose his head than retreat, and the best that you could say about _that_ was that it at least had nothing to do with pride, such as that borne by fools like Ichigo Kurosaki.

_What are we dealing with...?_ she wondered.

Thankfully, she knew what to look for. While Kira was in critical condition, Omaeda had simply been knocked unconscious, and been able to give a full report to her while she stood at his bedside--the enemy's appearance, and what little he knew of the fighting style he used. She was looking for a tall, muscular man with bright red hair and stubble, vivid blue eyes, and inked markings that, by their description, matched the _Tenteikura_ spell signature, along the arms. The weapon he used was a bo staff, and he had failed to react to the pair's mightiest blows.

That still wasn't a lot of information to go on, but it would have to be enough.

* * *

"_Achoo!_"

Momo covered her nose with her sleeve, hoping she hadn't alerted the enemy to her location. She was caught within a kido cloud. Seemingly not liking the direction the fight was going, the older opponent of the two, Haruo, had cast _Sekienton_. His usage of it was quite effective; she could sense neither where Daishin was nor where the spell's caster had gone.

_Should I try blowing the cloud away with Tenran? _she wondered. _Or should I not take the risk and just use my bankai?_

Sekienton was an odd spell to throw out there. It was too easily countered. Unless...had the spell been modified? Maybe the cloud of fluid had been modified to be flammable to defang her? She was extending her arms, having decided on the spell for safety's sake, but she didn't get the chance to cast it. She heard movement behind her, and had readied her sword not an instant too soon. There was a clang of metal, but no sparks. The globule of energy at the end of the guilty weapon, Haruo's 'fishing rod', was now glowing a bluish white, and had connected with her own weapon.

Momo stepped back, taken off-guard. There was another swing, and another, both of which she blocked, but they came with more force than she'd been prepared for, and seemed to be throwing off her defense. She felt her balance leaving her, but forced her foot backward to steady herself. With both hands, she struck back, knocking the pole away and barely dodging the glowing energy orb. She leapt backward a few paces, nearly losing sight of Haruo in the red smoke. As she readied her defense, she saw him swing the rod, and the energy orb detached. She swept to the side, turning on her heel to avoid it and watching it fly past her. She turned her head, wondering why he would sacrifice his offense like that.  
  
She saw the blue-white orb streak through the red fog around them, leaving a curious tunnel hole in its wake. Her eyes widened, and she ducked. She felt her hair swept back as the blade of a knife flew over her head. Moving upright, she twisted back towards Haruo, raising her shikai.

Like last time, the strikes were difficult to repel, and she quickly found herself taking steps back, but moving steadily to the side this time, trying to keep herself from being herded towards the area where she knew Daishin had thrown his blade from. It now hung at the end of her opponent's weapon, glowing black within the energy node, adding a deceptive amount of range and a dangerous venom effect to the older man's attacks. She swung her weapon with both hands, the edge of the knife blade nearly catching her in the face several times.

_Without the hook being visibly attached to the rod, I have no idea of exactly how long his range is and what is a safe distance..._

Haruo kept up his assaults, and catching them all was proving too difficult, until she finally stumbled, and shrieked as she fell backwards, the back of her head hitting the pavement. Panic overtook her. Behind the prongs of Tobiume, she saw the rod that made up Haruo's shikai extend a long spike out of the hollow end. She saw him lunge.  
  
"Bakudo number nine! Geki!"

Red light shone around the attacker, catching him mid-strike and holding him frozen in place. She rolled to the side, not a second too soon. Her binding spell, too weak to stick, failed an instant later, and her opponent hit the ground, stabbing the large impaling spike deep into the ground.

_Wait! Now's my chance!_

Momo swallowed her fear. She wouldn't get another opportunity.  
  
"Hado number fifty-eight! Tenran!"

There was a violent reaction to her spell. The gust of wind generated was powerful and concentrated, sucking all of the red smoke hovering over the area into the funnel that was now whirling point-blank into the face of the enemy. She heard footsteps, and realized immediately that her actions had exposed her to the other rebel involved. She kept the spell going, blowing a struggling Haruo back and continuing to pull all the nearby smoke into a funnel. Flames swam over Tobiume's blade, as she charged up as many fireballs as she could. Daishin, running full force, was bearing down at her. Right as he was aiming a large, meaty fist at her, she let the spell cease and turned.  
  
Flash step took her not forward, but upward, leaping fifteen feet into the air. Daishin had enough time to look upward, and meet her fireball with his face. Sent sprawling onto his back, he hadn't yet gotten back on his feet before she had hit the ground, and now unleashed the rest of the charged fire in her blade. One fireball straight to the face sent him staggering back, but the drop in his pressure didn't satisfy her. Two, three, four, and five more fireballs, and he was on his back ten feet away, singed and smoking and coughing. Now, she felt, he was weak enough that she could go for a coup-de-grace. She deactivated Tobiume and re-sheathed her zanpakuto, needing both hands free for steadiness.  
  
"Hado number eighty-eight!" she shouted. "_Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō!!!_"

Her spell was not as frighteningly powerful as they would have been from any true kido master, much less those on the caliber of Ushoda, Tsukabishi, or Unohana, nevermind without the incantation, but it was still enough. For an opponent of roughly lieutenant strength already weakened by repeat attacks, it worked. She watched and felt the enormous rush of power leave her hands in the form of a titanic blast of lightning, tearing the street up from its foundations and crashing over the thuggishly-built rebel. It carried him seventy meters, destroying all in its way, and Momo felt a slight wince of panic at what could've happened.

_I need to be more careful_, she thought. _I wasn't making sure of where I aimed. If that blast had fired in the direction of the infirm, I'd have just caused a huge disaster._

She wanted to take a second to gather her breath after such a spell, but heard movement behind her, and remembered Haruo still hadn't been dispatched. Wary, she leapt forward, and heard the sound of fabric being sliced. Rolling, she collected herself and put distance between them before turning around to face him. Haruo's fishing rod was still carrying Daishin's zanpakuto, but with its owner unconscious, it had reverted to its sealed state. What hung from the hook on his weapon now was no longer a poisoned weapon, which was a relief, but that didn't help matters entirely. The unsealed wakizashi form was still a good bit longer than the simple dagger its shikai had been, which explained the cut through her uniform's back and the slight sting of grazed flesh she now felt there.

Both of them seemed to consider one another for a moment. She was still prepared to fight him; now that she had taken care of his partner, he ought to at least be less of a challenge. Their eyes met, and she felt as if she was staring at a fox, seeing some sort of calculation behind his eyes. Was he planning on running? Then, he suddenly began running at her. Momo lifted her hands to throw out a spell, only to lose sight of her opponent. She recognized the sound of flash step, and whirled around. Her enemy was already halfway to his unconscious partner.

"Bakudo number four: Hainawa!"

A springy glowing cord burst from her pointed finger and shot towards Haruo, who heard her spell and tried to avoid it, but tripped as it managed to wrap around his ankle. Momo wordlessly fired another to completely ensnare him, but even that wasn't going to hold him for long, judging by the second and a half it had taken him to break out of Geki. Rather, she finished the fight with a trick she'd learned from Rukia: double incantation.

"Carriage of thunder, bridge of a spinning wheel. With light, divide this into six! Rikujōkōrō!"

The six boards of glowing yellow energy formed from the rapidly unraveling cords around Haruo, paralyzing him at the waist, whereupon both zanpakuto he was holding clattered to the ground. This was why she liked Bakudo; faster results, no risk of backfire. But....just to be on the safe side, since she didn't know his full capabilities...

"Bakudo number ninety-nine, part one! _Kin_!"

* * *

Rose held out his hand, allowing the black butterfly to alight on it. Shinji, next to him, watched and listened carefully.

"Playback message." he ordered.

"Rose, Shinji," came the voice of Kensei Muguruma, "I've already evacuated and secured the Kido Corps building and the Shin'o Academy. But Mashiro was defeated, and was taken to infirm by Shuhei. Lisa's also gone off the radar. I'm going to investigate. There seems to be some sort of rainstorm happening at that site. I'll have more data when I come back from there, but for now, someone needs to head south. Captains Hitsugaya and Kuchiki are too busy with the waves of rebels in their districts to divide their attention just now. There's a lot of spiritual pressure signatures converging in that direction, and it's got me worried, but I've got to see what's up on the eastern end first. We've lost too many captains already, and Shunsui and Squad Zero aren't back yet."

The message cut off there. The two Visoreds look at each other grimly.

"You keep assisting Shunsui until the barriers are broken. I'll go head south, and I'll send a hell butterfly back with what I find there." Rose voluneteered. Shinji nodded, turning his attention skyward, where several seeming holes in the sky could be seen opening onto yet more sky. How many barriers was that? He didn't care to ask. He strode to the edge of the roof, leaping down off of the top of the white prison tower. He needed to hurry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bluish-white ball of energy that is "hooked" on Haruo's weapon for a short time is a bakudo spell, [Seki](https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Seki). It's a repulsion spell he used to knock Momo's weapon out of the way more easily. The spell also repelled the red cloud around it where it travelled, opening up a clear line of sight from Daishin to Momo.
> 
> The moment of "calculation" when Momo faces off with him is him backed into a corner. Daishin, being unconscious, cannot press his mark to teleport back to base, and Haruo can't run or teleport back without him or he'll be raked over the coals, but he knows he can't defeat Momo without help, so he's trying to get to Daishin to forcibly press his teleporting mark for him.


	12. Sonata

_Clack. Thud._

Rose was moving across rooftops as fast as his flash step would allow. He wondered if Kensei was going to be alright. In terms of actual data, they were still far, far behind considering the hour and a half going on two hours that they'd been fighting. Fighting and casualties were happening in all four cardinal directions, but the only one they'd confirmed a captain-level presence in was west. Between Aizen, Yhwach and the Quincies, and now this, they really didn't have any excuses anymore. Of course, just like in the Blood War, they'd been caught without a good few of their strongest allies. Had anyone sent for outside help yet? Should they even do so?

As he sped southward, Rose summed up what they _did_ know: civilians were being held hostage, yet no ransom demands made. Their opponents were using poison liberally, mostly to trivialize the footsoldier ranks of reapers but occasionally to subdue lieutenant-level opponents as well. Zanpakuto were being seen among the rebels, which itself was concerning: no one outside the soul reaper force or those that had once been among them was even supposed to have one. That was a tightly-controlled distributing process. Kido was also being used. That wasn't so unusual, as plenty of civilians even in the Rukongai knew how to use low-level spells.

What they were really lacking, he realized, was genius minds capable of analyzing and reacting quickly to any situation. Urahara was trapped in the Soul Palace, and Akon had done a brilliant job of performing to, and even surpassing, the standards set by Mayuri's brain, yet he had been one of the earliest defeats. Rose did hope for the sake of Akon's pride--and his health, of course--that this had been a negotiating matter. Undoubtedly the enemy had targeted him and Urahara earliest very much deliberately.

_What's going on down here, though?_ he wondered. He'd received no reports of captains Abarai, Hitsugaya, and Kuchiki being dispatched, but they sure were taking an awful long time clearing out what didn't seem to be any more than common rebels, although there were admittedly quite a drastic number of them. He hadn't heard of them being defeated, but neither had he heard of any powerful forces this way. It seemed to be too lax an offense for the rebellion, too conspicuous a weak spot. Hadn't Kensei said he'd felt several pressure signatures converging in this direction? What had happened to them?

Suddenly, Rose drew his blade and turned on his heel, skidding over a rooftop, and pointed it at a disturbance he'd sensed behind him. His nerves were assuaged, however, when he realized it was only a black butterfly flying towards him. Lowering his sword, Rose held out his hand, waiting for the message to reach him. However, it never made it there. Only instants before it could reach his hand, there was a whistling sound, and Rose's sword arm came up again as something passed him by, blowing his hair over his face.

What he saw was some sort of disc or chakram, spinning at high speed yet floating through the air at a relatively lazy pace. A glance in the opposite direction failed to reveal the person who had thrown it. Looking back towards the weapon, Rose saw that the hell butterfly that had been flying towards him hadn't been killed, but rather appeared to have been swept up in a vacuum being generated by the discus. It spun around in the air, until it was left to drift off-course. Rose deliberated, but it soon regained itself and was flying normally again, only this time it wasn't towards him. It continued to follow the flying weapon, slowly at first but then picking up speed. That was strange...

He could keep going, or he could follow the butterfly. If he moved now, he could probably catch the message for himself and still investigate the happenings further south. He didn't want to risk ignoring what might be a vital report, so he chose to follow, zanpakuto held out to the side in case this turned out to be a trap.

For a few seconds, he followed at a distance, until he was sure that the butterfly was definitely following the chakram. That was odd on its own. Hell butterflies weren't supposed to detour from their address for any reason, so why were they doing so now? Just as he'd decided nothing bad was going to happen if he reached out and snatched the butterfly, something passed quite close to his face, alarming him, which turned out to be...a second butterfly.

_I'm jumpy today_, Rose thought, and turned back to the first butterfly, only to find, he wasn't sure where it was. A third butterfly was now floating close to the first, and in the same direction. He looked around. A fourth and fifth hell butterfly were flying along some rooftops just a few meters off. And a seventh, and an eighth...

In mere seconds, he counted no less than a dozen hell butterflies floating carelessly in the same direction, and that number was growing rapidly. Rose turned his eyes back towards the spinning disc, now much farther off, even as a group turned into a kaleidoscope. Perhaps this was a plot to deny the Seireitei an information network? It would fit in with the pattern so far. But if so, it was more a nuisance than a crippling blow, as there were plenty of other ways of long-distance communication, soul phones and kido among them. Still, it might behoove him to take out that weapon that seemed to have the entire populace of butterflies in Seiteitei hypnotized.

Rose began to pick up speed, using his flash step again, attempting to be careful not to accidentally step on or butt into any of the creatures flying en masse around him. Catching up to the chakram without doing so was a chore. However, before he could snatch it out of the air, he slowed down somewhat, as he realized he wasn't alone.

There was someone standing on a higher rooftop in the distance, and Rose came to a full stop once he was close enough to make out that it was a man. As he watched, every butterfly in the vicinity, which could've been anywhere from fifty to a hundred, began to converge on him. The chakram whistled off as it flew away past him, down into an alleyway and out of sight. Rose's eyes flickered between there and the new person, who he didn't recognize. He didn't seem at all bothered by dozens upon dozens of small winged creatures perching on him. It was hard to get a good look at him underneath all of the black wings, but Rose thought his eyes looked rather bloodshot. He had one arm outstretched, butterflies coating it like a sleeve, and a single individual perched atop his middle knuckle.

"What a bizarrely beautiful scene..." Rose murmured, more to himself than to his company. "And who might you be?" he asked tentatively, raising his voice somewhat to be heard over the flutter of wings, which took a few seconds to come to a stop. The man didn't answer. Failing that, Rose opted to simply try and retrieve his correspondence. "Playback message."

His mistake was realized at once. There was an utter cacophany, all of the butterflies began relaying their voice recordings all at once, none of the voices distinguishable from the din. Rose pulled his zanpakuto up and laid it horizontal in the air in front of him. With his free hand, he drew his finger from the tip of the blade all the way down to the base, like pulling down a dial on a soundboard. As one, all of the voices dimmed to quietness except for the last one, but from that he only caught the tail end, which was "under any circumstances." He tried again.

"Playback message for Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi."

The only voice that spoke this time emanated from the butterfly perched on the man's outstreched fingers. It spoke in a battered voice punctuated with the sounds of heavy breathing.

"Report from Captain Lisa Yadomaru," coughed the voice, "concerning tactics used by the rebels. It seems they are aware of and capable of counteracting our--"

_!!!_

Rose grimaced. The message was not completed, as the man holding the butterfly playing it back had lifted it close to his face, and...and eaten it, biting off the top half of the tiny beast's body along with part of its wings. Both were spat out onto the tiling nearby. He narrowed his eyes, his shock quickly being overcome by disgust and indignation.

"That was, frankly, barbaric, brazen, and rude on all levels." he said loudly, teeth gritted together. The man turned towards him very slowly, one of his bloodshot eyes squinting. Past the flutter of wings against parts of his face, Rose thought he could see the man smiling.

The captain was slid back slightly along the rooftop, overcome with a sudden, vicious blast of spiritual pressure. At the same instant, there seemed to be an explosion, the fragile butterflies covering the man violently destroyed, their wings being carried past him on a wave of this ferocious pressure. Feather-like, hundreds of black wings and torn remnants of the same were sent hurdling away before the intensity calmed, leaving them as a ring of floating debris that began slowly drifting to the ground around them. Rose felt ill.

"Rōjūrō......Ōtoribashi...wazzat your name?"

The words were spoken with a sweeping drawl, an accent you didn't tend to hear within the confines of the Seireitei. They were spoken carelessly, just shy of mockingly, and Rose took a battle stance.

"Alright then...let's get down to business."

* * *

Kensei had stopped short.

White water was flowing down the street, soaking through his shoes, and triggering a dull ache in his feet at the contact. The full brunt of the flood was up ahead, as was the localized rainstorm causing it, but here and there he felt tiny droplets making contact with his bared shoulders or face, causing a tiny sting, barely noticeable. Something told him that it would be much worse if he were to enter the downpour, to say nothing of the near-total cutoff of visibility and hearing within. But Lisa was in there somewhere, and the longer he dallied, the worse the likelihood of her coming to harm was.

Steeling himself, he slammed his foot into the ground and broke into a sprint, using flash step between each footfall. Though there was no distinct line to be crossed, he felt immediately the change brought on by the augmented rain. A few tiny stings became a thousand substantial ones. None of them halted his advance, though they burned against his flesh. He ignored the pain; he was fairly certain that Lisa was going to be at the epicenter of this storm site, so he had a ways to go if he was going to get in, retrieve her, and get out, without accounting for delays.

The street ahead was painfully bright, doused in light from the raindrops all emitting their white glow. The effect was rather like someone had turned the brightness far too high up on an image, with what few details he could make out past a curtain of rain hideously obscured and losing much detail. He was moving at a fast pace, and with his speed, it would only be a few seconds more...

_BOOM!_

"_Aaaargh!_"

Kensei had looked in the wrong direction. What he'd thought he'd heard was thunder, causing him to look towards the sky, worried that lightning might strike him. This had been a deadly mistake. Something large had slammed straight into him, breaking flesh and digging a point right into his gut. Kensei became aware of two things at once. First, he felt a severe pain, brought on by something heavy hitting him at high speed, and second, he realized that he'd become weightless, and was traveling backward at a very high speed.

Breathless and struggling to stay conscious, Kensei looked down and grabbed blindly at what had impaled him: he had been stabbed by an arrowhead-shaped object, a rounded object tapering to points and then curving inward to its base. He felt his feet dragging on the ground as the object slowed down, gravity retaking him once more, and he grit his teeth together as his wet hair finally slapped back against his forehead and he ground to a stop. A blast of pressure hit him, and just as suddenly as it had come out of the glowing rain and struck him, it sped backwards at the same pace, ripping itself free of his flesh, with him letting out with a cry of pain. It vanished into the glowing white rain.

Kensei collapsed backward, the back of his head hitting the pavement and barely registering. A second cry of agony ripped through Kensei as he held his stomach, trying to contain the bleeding. Another pain was upon him, but this was not the simple but extreme pain of a serious wound. That, he could have worked through, given his durability and experience. This was worse, _so_ much worse, this was barbed wires lit with flames piercing and tearing through his flesh, this was needles laced with acid piercing him to the bone. The terrible sensation was centered on his wound, but he could feel it spreading beyond.

_Well, I'm fucked_, he thought. _But so is Lisa if I can't--if I can't--_

Putting away any complicated thought processes, he dragged himself to his feet. He stumbled, and fell to his knee once, but managed to get up. He could probably energize himself enough to ignore this pain if he could just...

But when he drew his hand across his face, nothing happened. There was no mask covering his head. He had felt the Hollow energy within him, intended for it to rise to the surface and solidify, but...nothing had occurred. Instead of coalescing, it had evaporated in his hand. He tried again, only to find the same thing happening, with the energy within him seeming to charge up for a moment before weakening and dissipating. The confusion in him was strong enough to overpower the blinding pain, if only for a moment.

_C'mon...got to do this..._

He tried harder this time, summoning energy reserves from his inner Hollow, and refusing to let it flow anywhere until he had a solid grasp on it. The pain in him--no, on him--seemed to intensify. Ignoring it, he pulled his hand across his face slowly, dark red and black fluid following his fingers and attempting to solidify over his face, but the pain worsened. He saw his fingers and palm smoking, and as he tried to shape the mask over his face, felt it disintegrate even as he tried. The energy he had a hold of began to shake in his hand and within his body, and he felt the flesh on his hand beginning to burn up. Another yell of pain, this time mixed with frustration, left him. He gave up, and his skin stopped smoking ominously.

_I can't summon my Hollow mask?_

_BOOM!_

He had only an instant to ponder what sort of interference was happening with his Hollowfication processes before he heard the second clap of thunder. Kensei moved, throwing himself to the side of the street and collapsing against a wooden wall as the huge spearhead missile went rocketing by him again. If he took another direct hit from that thing, he might never make it to Lisa. He pressed himself tight against his bearings as the missile sped back towards its origin point somewhere behind the curtain of blinding rain, feeling a doorknob pressing into the small of his back--

Wait. A doorknob...

Kensei acted, reaching behind him for the knob. The door was locked, but this mattered very little to strength like his, even in his disoriented and agonized state. He ripped the door open, breaking the lock in the process, and entered some civilian's house, slamming it shut behind him. The change was immediate; a burden was lifted as Kensei felt a good portion of the edge blunted off of the stinging pains of the rain as he collapsed onto a carpeted floor. He felt like he could breathe again, though as he took a deep breath he immediately regretted it, as this caused a flare-up in the already mind-numbing pain centered on his stomach wound.

_Quincy energy_, he thought. It figured that as Hollow energy was toxic to Quincies, their own energy would prove equally toxic to Hollowfied soul reapers. _Does that mean this fight was started by some resentful Quincy upstarts? I thought we'd taken care of the rest of those ten years ago_. But now, able to sit up, he tried to examine his wound.

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck it all--_

His hand, which had been firmly clasped over it, came away thick with blood. It had poured down his waist and legs. But the wound itself wasn't as much of a concern to him as the venom that had apparently been involved--the pain from mere seconds ago, already intense enough to debilitate him, was mounting even higher. It tore at his brain and refused to allow him to focus on anything else. He vaguely noticed behind his blurry vision--from the rain, or from the toxin?--that his hands were shaking. He went lax, slumping against the carpet and groaning, the groan becoming a yell and the yell becoming a scream. He was overcome, dragged under, and rational thought slipped away bit by bit, then left entirely. Kensei could hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing except torment spreading from his stomach, clawing at the edges of his mind. His body was now full of barbed wire, being torn at from within, or perhaps he was being boiled alive, or maybe he was chained to a lava flow...

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck god damn it kill me kill me kill me **kill me**\--_

His eyes jerked open, and he gasped for breath. Rolling over onto his back, he clutched at his stomach. The pain was...gone. It had vanished. Not receded, or changed. It was gone, all of it. No more barbs, no more fire. Breathing harshly, he tested his limbs out, finding them working. Already, he had to re-evaluate where he was. Carefully, he flexed his fingers and rolled once more, finding himself on all fours and dripping both blood and foggy water onto someone's rug.

_What the hell just happened? Am I having a nightmare?_

As he pulled himself into a sitting position, he became aware that not _all_ the pain was gone--there was still an ache where his wound had been inflicted. He could barely be bothered, now, with the fact that some organ or two had been destroyed by a large object being driven through him. He'd had worse injuries, after all, but it wasn't just that. Compared to the traumatic agony of a few seconds prior, he could've had every bone in his body broken to pieces and still not have really cared to compare them. What _was_ that? He had one of the strongest constitutions you could find in Soul Society, but for a few moments there, he'd completely forgotten his rescue mission, forgotten anything but escaping that hideous pain.

_I can't take another hit like that_, he reiterated to himself, and just like that, he remembered that he was indeed in the middle of a rescue mission. He listened closely, straining his ears, and the drum of rain was still pounding away outside. He wasn't going to be able to work or fight at full capacity as long as water laced with bleach-like Quincy energy was falling out of the sky. And he wasn't going to be able to do anything with his guts pouring out either--he'd had worse injuries, true, but that didn't mean this was one he could simply afford to tank. Pulling his hand over his face, he tried again to summon his Hollow mask. Gripping the negative energy within himself and flowing it through his body was easier, but still too shaky. His mask was half-formed over his face when it crumbled to pieces and the rest of the dark fluid in his hand disappeared.

_Damn...gotta get this stuff offa me_. He may not be in the rain, but he was still soaked in it, and it was preventing him from healing and fighting. In his head, he apologized to his fallen comrade, who was going to have to wait just a little longer for assistance. He looked around the home he'd collapsed into, and after surveying the layout, began to limp down a hall, blood still flowing down his legs. He opened a door, found a bedroom, and moved on, opening another door and finding an office. Down a bend and past a living room, he finally found a bathroom, with what he was looking for: a shower.

Kensei peeled off his soaked clothes, struggling for a minute to extricate himself. He turned on the hot water knob in the shower basin, and stepped in. Relief was slow, but noticeable. The smoky white fluid flowed down off of him, mixing with the blood that rinsed off of him to create a truly sickening effect as water sped down the drain. He was deeply glad that his enemies, wherever they were, had not seen fit to further pursue him.

The water came off, and Kensei leaned back against the shower wall. Clean of the interfering fluid, he focused his power. Utilizing his inner Hollow, he called on a specific ability, and felt a tightening sensation around his wound. He looked down at his stomach, watching dark energy coalesce there as it repaired his flesh inside and out.

Shinji tended to take the brunt of attention when it came to the Visoreds, often being considered their spokesperson and the strongest among them. While Kensei didn't really know which of the former captains among the Visoreds could truly take that title and wasn't competitive enough to care, he knew he at least had something the others didn't. He had mastered high speed regeneration. His body was whole once more.

The patter of water continued even with the shower turned off. Regardless of how safe he was inside, he had to get outside at some point, and once he did, he'd still be deprived of his Hollow mask. He toweled off, and then looked down at his pile of wet clothes. Modesty wasn't exactly something Kensei devoted a lot of effort towards, but arriving to save a defeated comerade while bare-assed was beyond even him. Besides, Lisa would never let him hear the end of it, nevermind Mashiro. Maybe if it were Shuhei...

He retrieved his sheathed zanpakuto from the sopping pile, and jogged down the hall to the bedroom he passed. _Please let this be a man's home_, he thought, as he strode in and immediately made for the closet. Much to his relief, he was dressed in something fairly casual yet definitely masculine, albeit a couple sizes too small, by the time he left the room. Taking out his zanpakuto, he held it aloft before him.

"Bankai! Tekken Tachikaze!"

A blast of wind engulfed him and bent the surrounding walls outward, before the ceiling was blasted away. Shame someone's home had to be sacrificed, but this would only be the lightest case of destruction the Seireitei over. The rain bore down on him again, but the stinging pains were nothing to him now. He leapt out of the hole in the ceiling onto the rooftop.

_BOOM!_

Kensei swerved to the side, avoiding the arrowhead missile as it sped past him. _Perfect, now I know where it's coming from, and where Lisa is_. He broke into a run, utilizing his flash step as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop, sticking low so he could easily make it back onto the ground if he needed to. Sure enough, the missile behind him thundered again and he jumped sideways, skidding onto the wet pavement again as the thing destroyed a shed and a tree in one go. Now that he had a better look at it, he could see a bright blue light trailing in its wake, bright enough to be seen past the curtain of white rain.

He sped up, breaking into a sprint. On hearing the crash of more destroyed surroundings, he ducked and rolled, feeling a rush of air over him as the missile crossed him again. When he was back on his feet, he skidded to a stop, feeling a fist collide with his face. Kensei slid back, stumbling against the wet ground. He looked up, and the silhouette ahead of him vanished with a whirr of shunpo. Kensei hadn't gotten a good look at the attacker. He readied himself to deal with ambush tactics.

Another shadow within the curtain flashed to his side, and Kensei brought his arm up to block a kick. Though he didn't feel himself give this time, his dodge was poorly-timed, and he felt his shoulder grazed by the missile as it sped past him. He clutched it, afraid he'd be overcome with that torment again, but felt nothing but a minor twinge. It seemed he hadn't been hit by the part that held the venom. He'd gotten a closer look at his attacker, too, and determined that it was definitely a man.

There was another flash of shunpo, but this time Kensei was ready and threw his leg out behind him. Judging by the grunt and cough, he'd caught the attacker in the stomach. The captain wasted no time and continued forward, spotting a small yellow glow in the distance. He adopted a dodge-and-weave to his sprint, lurching between the left and right sidewalks on the street to make sure neither the attacker nor the envenomed projectile being thrown around could land a hit. It seemed to be working, because though he heard the crashing and the thunderous booms of the weapon launching, and the sounds of flash step being used to try and keep up with him, neither one connected with him again.

The trail of blue light, which he had noticed with the first few firings of the weapon, had been steadily dimming until it was no longer present. But now he could see another blue light in the distance, shimmering along the length of something. Skidding to a halt, he saw a person, too far away to visibly identify, holding something several feet long that was trailing that blue light. At the end of it, he could see the missile beginning to glow. He crouched, and was ready when the shape of the blue light changed and told him the weapon was being aimed at him.

_BOOM!_

He leapt into the air, speeding through it as the missile crashed into the ground right where he'd been. He landed on the rooftop and brought his bankai's right hand blade down against his opponent's weapon. They brought it up, a metal pole blocking him, but quickly caved underneath the force of his punch. He judged by the sound of her voice that it was a woman, and sent her hurtling off into a tree in a nearby garden. It bent over her, cracked with the force she'd slammed into it with. She got up quickly thereafter, though. Kensei peered closer, and thought he could make out some details now. But there was another flash to his left.

Kensei was taken off his feet, tackled right off the rooftop and slammed into the ground. He landed hard, and immediately felt a fist connect with his mouth. Kensei bit down and focused power into his gauntlets, transforming them into brass knuckles before sending them straight into the offender's cheek with a left hook. The attacker was thrown off of him, rolling, and Kensei got up, wary of a blue light he saw in the distance. He scrambled to his feet, lunging, and saw the shimmering waves along the pole the woman bore. She was to Kensei's left, while the man was to his right. He used flash step, putting the man inbetween himself and the woman.

She aimed her missile, and both the man and Kensei ducked at the same time as another boom rang out, the missile flying over their heads. The captain lunged, and uppercut the man right in the gut, sending him flying into the air. Immediately after, he jumped, and when he looked down, saw the missile flying back underneath him, carving a ditch into the pavement.

_She may be using a ranged weapon_, he realized, _but her attacks aren't too different from mine. She relies on charging single attacks with waves of energy and letting the overwhelming force break her opponent's defense, or just smash them entirely. Like a single, powerful haymaker rather than faster, weaker strikes. I've got an advantage on her, though. Her attacks lose power the more they expend, while mine stay at full force no matter how many punches I make._

_BOOM!_

"Yergh!"

He hadn't been able to get a solid grip on the reishi in the air. His attempt at stopping his fall had been botched, and the missile had launched again. Kensei's attempt to repel it had failed, with its point creating a gash up the length of the thick cloth wrapped around his left arm and shoulder and tearing skin as he fell past its trajectory. Though the cut wasn't deep, it was still there.

_Shit!_

He could already feel the burning wires lacing his flesh from within his arm. If he didn't finish this in the next few seconds, he was going to go out of his mind with pain again.

He landed hard, and heard a thud from somewhere far off indicating the man had landed as well. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought the rain was thinning out. He felt like he could see the enemy better, hear them better. But that wasn't going to matter if he didn't dispatch that missile launcher. Focusing the woman in his line of sight, he stepped to the side as he missile dug a crater into the ground next to him, and broke into a sprint. He crossed the distance in a single flash, and she brought her polearm up to block, but wasn't fast enough. Kensei grabbed her by the front of her rainsoaked robe and brought his burning left arm up, bashing her in the face and sending her flying. He bounded after her, frog-leaping as she recalled her missile to herself. She stood up, spat out blood, and flashed back, evidently trying to keep a good aiming distance up. He skidded to a halt as she aimed the pole topped with its oversized spearhead at him.

_BOOM!_

"_Gyegh!_"

_!!!_

Kensei's right fist had connected with the missile head-on with as much force as he could pack into a haymaker. His feet skidded back only slightly, and blue light bled from the fractures that filled the surface of the weapon. Joy and relief broke over him as he saw the entire thing shatter with a tremendous blast of air pressure. Immediately, the burning in his left arm was gone.

The rain was definitely slowing down, because he could see a look of shock and panic on the woman's face. Immediately, the pieces of the stinger missile on the pavement vanished and coalesced into a sealed zanpakuto that she sheathed at her waist. The polearm remained for a few seconds before it, too, vanished. From behind a couple of buildings, Kensei saw a flash of green light, which almost distracted him from the woman pulling her hand up to her chest. A flash of green light occurred around her, too, and she was gone.

The captain heaved in a deep breath. He allowed for a few seconds of tension, wondering if this was a trick or if there were going to be some sort of attack, from the two he'd fought or from others, before determining that they'd simply retreated. He allowed his bankai to fade back into Tachikaze, which he stuffed into a pocket of his stolen pants. Looking around him for a tall structure that hadn't been destroyed by something big and heavy smashing into them, he found a shrine on a hill. Making his way there quickly, he used it as a vantage point. He was sure he'd seen a yellow glow at some point while approaching the fight with those two, and after a few seconds of searching, he located it again, a yellow light emanating from an alleyway, against a wall.

Making his way there, he finally found his defeated comrade, laid on the ground on a step leading up to a door under an awning. She was bound by several ropes he recognized as low-level kido. Taking out his combat knife, he began to cut her free of them.

"Lisa. _Lisa!_"

He tried not to appear concerned as she slowly blinked her eyes open.

"Kensei?"

"Are you alright? C'mon, let's get you to infirm."

After checking her for injuries, he determined she had an injury much like had been inflicted on him earlier. His annoyance at having to opt for a bridal carry, as it was safer than his standard over-the-shoulder, was swallowed up by sympathy. Hopefully she hadn't laid here in mind-bending agony for too long.

"Kensei..."

"Hmm?"

Lisa's voice was weak. He didn't like the dazed, far-off look in her eyes. Bile rose in her throat.

"I...I have to ask something..."

"What is it?" he asked, straining his ear. If she was asking something, it meant she wasn't about to die, so he could afford not to panic...right?

"What...the _fuck_ are you wearing?"

_Oh fuck you, get to the 4th on your own_, he thought.


	13. Flashback 03

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very important thank-you to **[ki_no_shirayuki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ki_no_Shirayuki/)**, who's assisted me with translations--see author's note at the bottom.

_I've always been a creature of passion._

_My husband once told me that I didn't know the meaning of 'half', nevermind the word 'wait'. For me, if something is worth feeling, saying, or doing, it has to be worth feeling, saying, or doing it all the way. It's caused me no end of trouble with people my entire life, but that's just how I am. And thankfully, I found a man who enjoyed that part of me. I didn't feel like being demure, or seen-but-not-heard. I found a man who listened, who didn't want me to hold myself back at all. And when I needed advice, or a helping hand, or a second opinion, or a brutal honesty, he gave it to me.  
_

_He also gave me a son, Kuroda._

_My pregnancy was riddled with complications. After giving birth, I made sure to remark to my husband that it didn't seem fair that you could trade seven minutes of heaven for seventy minutes of brutal pain and discomfort down the nine-month line. He gently reminded me that I'd made an investment of seventy years at the least, by our doctor's approximation of the healthy baby boy he then handed me. And I was so happy, because things had been shaky there, and I was worried if he'd come out healthy. Ikuro he started crying. I was crying too, but I laughed a lot at the same time. So we named our child Kuroda, and we went home as new parents._ _The rest of it was a happy, blissful blur, until the day we died. _

_We didn't make it to seventy years, any of us. Not in the living world, at least. It was a terrible way to go, the way we did. I won't go into the details. The burns on my arms and legs were trivial; I could only hear the silence coming from my son as his breathing finally stopped. Searing air had scorched my throat, refusing me voice when I needed to cry and scream. _ _I woke up a few minutes later. I looked down at my arms, and saw my dead son, almost a man but not quite yet. Still my baby. _

_But I wasn't alone. There was me down there on the ground too, clutching him. I looked at myself and saw a chain, and I was approached by a strange, robed being carrying a sword. It was explained to me that I was a ghost now, and needed to be sent to a place called Soul Society. I asked where my husband and son were, clutching at the chain. I was only told that Kuroda had already gone there, so I wanted to follow him. The handle of the sword was pressed to my head, and I got my ticket. But I didn't find my son for a long, long time._

_I did find the bastards that attacked us and cost us our lives, though. I had never held a weapon in my life, but I didn't need one--without the cover of night, they didn't stand a chance against me, tiny but strong, pretty but fierce. I beat them black and blue, and had to be pulled off them by soul reapers, who gave me a stern reprimand, then told me to consider enrolling at Shin'o, given my strength. I told them to go fuck themselves. But I left the former bandits be, and continued my search for my loved ones._

_It could've been longer, as I understand most souls in the afterlife never do meet up with their loved ones. Ikuro was the one to find me, and together we expanded our search for Kuroda. He found him before me, and when he brought him home, I felt like Soul Society really was a paradise. We lived a close-enough facsimile to our usual lives, and even though it took a long time, we scrambled up enough money for a ceremony. Ikuro married me again, and in absence of my father, my son walked me down the aisle. I told him I couldn't wait to return the favor one day when he found a girl he loved, and he laughed. A little while after, Kuroda became a big brother._

_And I had thought my first pregnancy was stressful...nobody every mentioned how much longer it took to bear a child, nor just how slowly they aged. Ikuo was worth it, though. Motherhood came no differently to me than anything else I pursued--all or nothing. And for this little child who looked so much like his father, with dark eyes and dirty blond hair, I'd be the best mother he could ever dream of. He'd want for nothing, any more than Kuroda would.  
_

_Things could be scary in the Rukongai. Though we mostly lived happily, there were reminders that it wasn't a very nice place at the best of times. For example, the petty bandits I'd beaten the tar out of weren't done with their lessons. I heard that they tried to form a gang of thieves, but were quickly cut down by one of those already-established gangs ruling the districts. Though most souls didn't need to eat, once you got strong enough, you had to, and there was a constant shortage of both cash and resources. I remember worrying every so often about whether the new farmland we'd purchased would support us this season. And if you did by chance have enough to support yourself, let alone a family, it could easily be stolen from you, and you might not live to report it to the Seireitei's military. Not to mention, there were rumors of a terrifying demon roaming the outer districts, who would occasionally make passes into the more prosperous ones. I think that last one was just a rumor, though.  
_

_I made do, though. Even when hard times came by, I put everything I had into feeding and caring for my sons, supported by my husband. I was often the first one out the door whenever I thought anyone was trying to intimidate Kuroda or Ikuro, and I wasn't afraid to throw down, either. I think this might've hurt Kuroda's pride, though, because he eventually spilled that he wanted to be a soul reaper. _

_I thought that was a bit much, but if he wanted to make an extra bit of cash, and help support and protect the family, it was fine by me. He never ended up enrolling, though, which I guess I should've been relieved about. A broken dam and quite a few murders meant that everyone was scared, including Ikuo. We needed him here at home. Still, I looked around for some trainers, but didn't find any, although I heard he found a friend or two who could teach him and encouraged him to do so. I heard there was a particularly good swordsman out there who was laying low, but who was it?_

_Ultimately, it didn't matter, because he never got the chance to engage in a real fight._

_Just like the first time, our intruders came in the night, and we were caught off guard. Only this time, there was no fire. Just straightforward murders. _

_I shut down. It was just like that night, when hell wasn't a place, but a feeling. That feeling where I wanted to scream forever, but couldn't find my voice. I felt cold. I felt like I was bleeding out, like something had been ripped from me, off of me. Kuroda..._

_Once I had realized that he really wasn't coming back, fire took over. It burned within me, and I was glad, because it gave me something to focus on other than his absence, the spot at the dinner table where he always used to sit. Rage consumed me, and so did the idea of vengeance. I don't think I really moved from one stage to the next. I just threw myself into a feeling that wasn't the horrible, horrible things that I had to realize anew each morning. _ _But I didn't know what to do with it. What could I do? There was no chance for me to take on the soul reapers. I didn't even know where to begin. This fire in me was useless without something to point it at. _

_And then, Ikuro came home one day, and told me we had a meeting. He had a blade holstered on his hip, said he'd bought it just today. I asked him what this was about, and he'd told me someone wanted to meet to discuss Kuroda. I remember, at that point, getting angry that he'd bought only one sword. What if I wanted a sword? What if I wanted to cut someone to ribbons? But I bit my tongue. He probably wouldn't even have bought it if he wasn't trying to keep me safe. He was too gentle to hunt men down._

_The man we met with, his face looked familiar...but there was no way I could've met him before. I surely would've remembered a man with a mechanical arm. He had a nodachi sheathed at his waist, and called himself Reizō. He identified himself as someone that knew our son, and offered us the chance to avenge him. Well, me, I was all over that. I asked only what I needed to do. He said that we were to start training to join a rebellion against the Seireitei. It was like exactly what I had wanted had dropped into my lap. This was a real thing? An organized rebellion? But as he talked, I realized exactly how this was possible. Of course now was the time to strike--they'd just suffered devastating losses in a war.  
_

_According to Reizo, he was still looking for 'auxiliary commanders'. Although he said he wouldn't give us any preferential treatment, he was also hoping that we would be the ones to live up to the potential needed for seconds-in-command. I told him to hand me a weapon and I'd do the rest._

_I didn't realize that it would be ten years before the rebellion actually started. Apparently, some strange things happened that made kicking off the rebellion immediately unwise. Not to mention, the death of a scientist--Reizo identified him as the one who had ordered the slaughter of our son, and the rest of the citizens--which was infuriating. Apparently, the kill was taken by one of his own underlings, someone the rebellion had already owed a lot to before then. I wondered who this backstabber within the Research Institute was, but it ultimately didn't matter--we'd be attacking from the opposite side of the city, so we wouldn't see him. In absence of getting to slay our son's killer, we were being trusted to handle some matters Reizo otherwise would've been handling himself._

_I have to admit, I've hesitated to get close to this Reizo guy. He's...quiet. Closed-off. More than a little intimidating. He would never give me any details when I'd ask how he knew my son. He characterizes himself less with words than action. There's a fire and smoke to him. Of course, being a welder, that kind of comes with the job...but still. I think something very similar drives us. But what would it be for him? He didn't lose anyone in the attack, as far as I know.  
_

_But it's hard not to see that he's a good man, even if I'd prefer to ignore him. He's got a little brother of his own, Junz_ _ō, who's also involved in the rebellion. Even though my rebellion leader isn't the sort to openly show a lot of emotion, it slips out of him. I can tell that he'd take on the whole world and then some if it was necessary to protect his little brother. I can see a protectiveness in him that wasn't too different from how Kuroda treated Ikuo._

_Ikuo...I'm sorry, son. It's only going to be a little longer. We have to do this, and then we can come back home..._

_...Well. It's almost time. Ikuro and I have practiced combat for the last decade, and we've both achieved our shikai. In fact, we've achieved more than that. We've been promoted to the 'auxiliary commanders' Reizo needed so badly, and that makes us the last ones. Right on time, really, the rebellion is due to start soon. We even had a little work done on our zanpakuto to make up for the relatively short training period we've had. And as for me, I'm going to be the first one to get in there and smash every soldier I see in there to pieces. _

* * *

_The happiest days of my life were when my sons were born._

_My life in the living world was so long ago that I barely remember most of it. But I remember meeting Emi, and I remember falling in love with her dark red hair, her gentle eyes and sweet voice. I remember falling in love with her hands that were rough from farmwork, I remember falling in love with the fire in her voice when talking about something she liked or hated. I remember seeing her wave off her bitter father, angry that she had chosen another poor farmer over a rich soldier like he'd wanted, with a few choice words. I remember that I married her because I loved her, in a time when love played very little part in marriage.  
_

_And I remember us having our first, and for the rest of our lives, only son. We named him Kuroda, and we were never happier than when we were raising him. He started off small, underweight for his age but very bright. We raised him on farmwork, like we had done, and he grew into a strong, handsome young man that was the picture of his mother. He had a love of life, respect for his surroundings, and patience for children. And he had a smile like warm sunlight. Though I disagreed, Emi said that part came from me.  
_

_It was a fire that killed us. I was 39, Emi was 35, and Kuroda was 17. Our little farmhouse was attacked by bandits and went up in flames. Everything was spreading so quickly, and the heat was so intense... We got out, and I remember Emi pulling our unconscious son out by his arms while I held the collapsed beam out of the way. Even though we all made it out of the house, we were badly burned, and couldn't breathe. I was the only one able to stand, let alone walk. I ran after the bandits, running out into the fields to try and get at them. I never caught up to them. Eventually, coughing, I staggered back to my wife and son. Neither of them was breathing. I collapsed soon after.  
_

_I became a ghost that day, or a 'Plus' as I guess they're called. I was scared. I could see all three of our bodies and knew we were dead, but I couldn't find the spirits of my wife and son. And my home...it was sitting there, smoldering. All of the animals we'd cared for had been stolen, and the crops were all ash now. I wanted to find and burn the bastards who'd done it, but not as much as I wanted my family back. Everything I'd had had been ripped from me, and I never understood why, nevermind whom. But I became driven to find out, the better to ignore my guilt for failing my family, and in my despair, became a Hollow.  
_

_Apparently, I had finally tracked down the guilty individuals and eaten them before Soul Society caught up with me. I was exorcised, but by the time I was sent to Soul Society, and then gotten my ticket, my wife and son were way ahead of me. I asked for help locating them, and of course none was given. Once I was actually in Soul Society, they didn't really care what happened to me after that.  
_

_So I spent the next three years tracking down my family. As it happened, it took so long because they were trying to do the same. I found Emi first, of course--nothing ever kept us apart for long, even in death. And then I found Kuroda. I ran to him when I saw him, pulled him into my arms and cried. It took place in the middle of a dirt-paved marketplace, and I remember everyone in the thoroughfare staring at me. I had learned by now that it was very rare for souls, even if they died at the same time, to find each other in the afterlife. I just hadn't considered that everyone around me would be so used to it, so accepting of it._

_And so my family was whole again. It seemed too good to be true. Disaster had struck, and even though it had taken a while, we had come back from it, and even though we were still poor, we still had so many years ahead of us to be safe and whole, and be happy any way that we chose. About a hundred years after we'd made it to Soul Society, we'd saved up enough that Emi and I renewed our vows, and then she became pregnant with a second son. We named him Ikuo, and cherished him. Each of us held him shortly after he was born, and I think it was different for each of us. Kuroda, especially, was stricken by an expression that made me smile as he held his little brother. It was the same look of wonder I'd had on my face when I'd first held him, when I was 22 in my previous life. That surprise that such a tiny, fragile thing could mean so much to him, could instill happiness in him just by being there. I knew he'd be a fantastic big brother.  
_

_Something had been stirred in Kuroda, though. I had heard his interest in the soul reapers shortly after we were reunited, but it hadn't really taken off until Ikuo was born. It was a sense of responsibility kindled in him, and he had brought it up over dinner one night: he wanted to join the ranks of the Gotei 13. '_ _I want to protect my parents, and my brother', he'd said. And for the first time, I saw one of my son's positive qualities and felt uneasy. _

_There was no question he was capable, if he wanted to. But I didn't want him to. Unlike the others, I had spent time as a Hollow. I had seen the 'death gods' through the eyes of the monsters they purified. I had been, for some time, a creature of despair and sorrow and rage and, above all, hate. As heroic as it was to want to save souls, it scared me. I didn't want him fighting beings like that. I wanted him here, where Hollows almost never ventured, where I could be assured he was safe. It was selfish. But I had lost him once, I didn't want to lose him again. If anyone should've been taking up a sword to protect his family, it should have been me, who had failed them the first time._

_I did actually try that, mind. I was a failure, not a coward. I had no real heroic personality traits, nor any true capability in combat. But I was still willing to take up a sword, if it would help me protect my family. Unfortunately, I failed the entrance exam. Not nearly enough spirit energy housed inside me, not even close. I was also told off for the reasons I stated for joining. Something about 'soul reapers do not fight for superiors or family, they give their lives for humanity'. Very good and noble, if I didn't sometimes think the Seireitei had forgotten what that meant themselves, at the time--and if I didn't later find confirmation that that was a load of hypocritical bullshit. So, I went back home, and I wasn't ashamed. _

_Kuroda was disheartened to hear that I hadn't passed. It seemed to dent his enthusiasm, which I was secretly relieved for. He seemed to think that if I hadn't been able to get in, then he stood no chance whatsoever. It was untrue, so untrue. I knew he was already stronger than me. He could be hundreds of times stronger than me, if he set his mind to it. But I didn't say that. I simply shook my head and said that it wasn't meant to be, while being thankful that his desire for a dangerous job was diminished._

_Diminished, though not extinguished. I knew he wouldn't ever admit it to me, but Kuroda had a lot of friends, and one of them was sure to know a few secrets of swordplay. I wondered if that was what he'd been doing at that junkyard, training in combat, but I never found out for sure._

_The true extinguishing came about when the Rukongai was attacked by a mad soul reaper who went on a rampage, culminating in a destroyed dam. We weren't in the path of destruction, but Kuroda's trust in the soul reapers was gone. As was my own, really. I never found out what was done to punish the guy who did it. Of course, the full details would come later. Though we lived in poverty, our quality of life hadn't been terrible, until that day. That mad soul reaper's actions cast hundreds, if not thousands of people into a worse life than before, and things that were just a matter of some effort soon became a struggle at the simplest level. Getting food was harder, several properties and parts of the market were destroyed, and quite a few personal goods had to be sold to make ends meet. For our family, struggling with raising a young child on top of three adults, it was a very difficult time.  
_

_Of course, we were still lucky. We hadn't been caught in the attack. We knew several families that were thrown into mourning. Still more were injured and had their livelihoods destroyed in their entirety. Neither had happened to us. We still had the things most precious to us._

_For about ninety more years, anyway._

_In 2003, ten years ago, our eldest son was killed. The Rukongai underwent a massive culling in the middle of the night. My son, my boy, was murdered._

_He didn't come home one night, and I left the house the next morning to try and find out what had happened. I checked all of the usual places, the junk yard first of all, but no one was there, nor was Kuroda anywhere. But I wasn't the only one searching for a loved one. I saw people out in the streets, calling for people they knew. The thing is, we all knew the truth, but as long as there was a way to pretend it wasn't real and they'd come home soon, we did that. Soul bodies are dissolved into the reishi making up Soul Society when they're killed, so they don't leave corpses.  
_

_Seireitei entered a war with a supposedly-extinct race the same day, and though it didn't really affect the rest of us, we heard the ripples. We found out a lot after it was over. All of it came from fellow souls in the Rukongai, and the Seireitei never made an effort to explain anything...or atone for what they did. It eventually spread that yes, an amount of innocent people numbering in the tens of thousands had all been killed in a single night, by soul reapers._

_I remember not speaking for several days straight when I found out. Emi was the same. Ikuo was...a wreck. Emi and I didn't have the strength to explain to him, but he knew anyway. Once I had started to process that my son really was gone, the guilt started to set in. Had I caused this? If I had let Kuroda become a soul reaper, would he maybe not have been killed? I didn't have enough energy to process the shame of that question--the proper shame that should've overcome me if I had stopped to realize that might mean Kuroda would have killed innocents instead. And there was another question, a possibility, nagging at the back of my brain that was too painful to consider. _

_I had lost my son once, only to realize an afterlife was waiting for us, a second chance. And now I had lost him a second time, this time forever. He was gone, and I would never, ever see him again._

_I had entered a sort of depressive state in the weeks that followed. Revenge didn't even cross my mind, though if it had, I probably would've dismissed it. I didn't have any idea who his killer was, nor any way to make them pay. I was helpless, really. Until I ran across a man in the market one day._

_Well, I say I ran across him. It was more like he'd appeared behind me out of thin air, and clapped a hand on my shoulder. A tall guy, with sharp, blue-green eyes and a slick of hair dark as ink set forward over his forehead. He asked me if I was Ikuro, and I swallowed and nodded, afraid someone had come to settle some grudge I didn't know existed. But he just told me that he was a friend of a man who wanted to meet me and my wife. It was about our son, he'd said, and he asked if we could meet him some time at night. I said yes without hesitation and he gave me the date._

_Hindsight told me that was a dumb and careless move that could end up with hostile thugs beating us or shaking us down for money, or the like, so I looked around until I found a weaponsmith and bought a sword. I told Emi, and she agreed that we had to go._

_I got a surprise when we held the meeting. The man who wanted to talk to us was one I recognized clearly--it was one of Kuroda's friends, the man from the junkyard he frequented. He carried a nodachi with him, and I guessed instantly that my hunch that my son had been practicing swordplay away from home was correct. He identified himself as Reizo, without a last name. He offered us a place within a rebellion that he said would crumble the Seireitei, would change everything. Me, I was hesitant. It wasn't like I had intimate knowledge of the Seireitei, but a military organization that powerful didn't feel like it was going to go down all that easily. It had just endured a war, and was still standing, after all. I wondered why he was offering us this.  
_

_But we accepted. I didn't know how it was going to work. I just knew that stagnating the way we were would eventually kill us. I wasn't much of a fighter, but I was willing to try. After all, Reizo's words about the ultimate goal were true. Forcing the Seireitei to kneel was necessary, or this kind of thing would happen again, the moment it was convenient. To protect the Rukongai, we had to fight. He had seemed to look into my eyes when he said that. Something unspoken was communicated: it's what Kuroda would've done._

_Thinking of Kuroda made me all too ready to cry. I didn't know for sure what he'd want. I knew he was a gentle person, but I also knew he'd never stand for mass slaughter simply for 'the greater good'. But I thought of Ikuo, and my mind was made up. If this happened again, it could be him next. I'd rather fight a thousand wars than lose another son._

_So we went to work. I found Reizo to be...rather intimidating. He wasn't frightening, like Kazuo was on the few occasions I met him. Perhaps it was the industrial-looking mechanical arm and the burn scars, but I felt like he could break me in half if he wanted to, but he wouldn't. He was my sparring trainer, as well as Emi's. Apparently, I had a disappointingly low spiritual pressure field, but 'everyone starts somewhere', as he said. I was amazed at his sword form. For a man his age, he was very clearly well-learned, and the imbalance between his arms didn't seem to hinder him at all. The rate at which my wife advanced compared to me was...a little embarrassing. I tried to resist feelings of emasculation. I put my all into training, and would often ask to meet with Reizo any night that we could to get in more practice._

_Of course, it wasn't just self-improvement I was after. The question at the back of my brain had been nagging me week after week, month after month. It was eventually going to slip my lips. And I knew he would be the only one, if anyone could, to provide me with an answer._

_People had been taken from all over the Rukongai. Souls that were slain, their bodies were dissolved into reishi that made up the Soul Society, and their spirits move back into the living world to be reincarnated. But if you cut someone here, and their blood is spilled, anything before the shutdown and final death is still going to leave a stain. Proof of a person's existence will remain if you aren't clean in your kill. That's why, as I understood it, a majority of the culling took place further out in the Rukon districts. The killings there didn't have to be as clean as the ones closer to the middle, where we lived, nevermind the ones closer to the center. It wasn't like the murders would be noticed, or perhaps that's what they thought. Even in the hell that outer Rukongai is on its best days, let alone its worst, you can't just kill that many people in that short a time without being found out. _

_It didn't have to be the case, but I wanted to know. There was no guarantee he wouldn't have been culled if he'd stayed closer to home, or even that he hadn't been close to home to begin with. But I needed to know if, maybe, there was a chance he could've lived. I asked Reizo, one night, if he'd seen Kuroda on the night of the culling. He stared at me for a minute--gauging whether to answer, or whether to lie, I guess. And he told me that yeah, they'd been hanging out that afternoon. And I swallowed, and I stumbled over my words, but eventually I got it out. I asked him, then, if Kuroda had tried to stop the cullings. _

_It took Reizo a long time to answer. But eventually, he nodded. I pressed him for details, and he told me that they'd been strolling around in districts further out and noticed movement in the distance. Reizo, who had reason to believe there was danger, retreated to the safety of his junkyard, and encouraged Kuroda to go home. He hadn't known, at the time, that it was members of the stealth force mixed with assassins from the Twelfth Division. Whatever Kuroda had done, he hadn't come home that night, and he had been carrying his sword. Reizo told me that, if he were honest to me, he'd say that Kuroda probably tried to follow someone out and gotten caught up in the cullings while they were happening. We'd never have any way of knowing for sure, of course. _

_I fell to my knees, and Reizo pulled me up, and pulled me into a hug. After a minute, he told me that Kuroda had been taking up swordplay from him, and that if he knew the man like he'd thought he did, he'd almost certainly saved at least one person once he found out what was going on. Maybe a few people owed their survival to him keeping a close eye out that night and deciding to put his life on the line. _

_There was no way to know for certain, of course. And it hurt, not knowing. But I liked Reizo's version, where there was one, tiny little positive speck I could see in the death of my son. I didn't know Reizo well, but I knew now that he felt similar to me: we both wished it had been us instead. Perhaps he thought that he could've stopped it and saved him. I just didn't care, my life for Kuroda's, any day. I promised him, then, that I wouldn't disappoint him.  
_

_I trained harder than ever. I supported my wife while she did the same. I don't know that I'm ready to take on the soul reapers. I may never be ready for that. But I'll still do it, because if I don't, then I could never look Kuroda in the eye. And...and I have to admit to myself something else. It's not just about doing the right thing, the Kuroda thing...I have to avenge him. Maybe that's selfish, or petty. But I have to tear and claw and smash, and do whatever I can to make sure the raw pain inflicted on my family is repaid. I won't let his death be put down to a number. I don't care who I have to fight.  
_

_But I don't intend to die. I still have another son at home, waiting on me to shape up and remember what it means to be a good father. I know he's strong, and I know he'll pull through this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Emi Inuzuka** is one of two auxiliary commanders--equivalent to lieutenant position and strength--under rebellion leader Reizo Kaneda and the wife of Ikuro Inuzuka. Loving and compassionate, yet aggressive and headstrong, she is out to avenge the death of her son, Kuroda. Though not fantastic at melee, she is naturally gifted with large amounts of spiritual pressure, and her drive to destroy her son's killers and the faction that conspired for it shows itself in her shikai: 飛ぶ棘 大砲弾 (_Tobutoge Daihōdan_, "Flying Barb Cannonball"). Its appearance is as simple as its method of attack: it is a large, heavy cannonball that simply flies towards its target with extreme force. However, it hides deceptive abilities: it can "fire" even in the middle of a previous launch, allowing it to change trajectories suddenly and surprise opponents without losing speed or power. Thanks to modifications made on it by Reizo, it also retains a form of "shikai memory"; when returning to its sealed form, it remembers the last space it occupied and can automatically reform there when released again, allowing for further surprise attacks.
> 
> **Ikuro Inuzuka** is one of two auxiliary commanders under Reizo Kaneda and the husband of Emi Inuzuka. Ikuro is quieter and gentler than his wife, lacking her ferocity but being just as loving. He tends to be more patient and think things through, providing a balance to his wife's strongly reactive nature. While Emi threw herself into vengeful rage and hatred in reaction to her son's death, Ikuro became depressed due to his own perceived failure in protecting his son, and concealed several doubts and concerns from her. While technically more skilled in combat than his wife, his power is easily eclipsed by hers, and he had to work very hard to keep up with her. This led to yet more insecurity about his ability to defend his remaining family. His shikai is 軍鼓 (_Gunko_ or “War Drum”), representing a more steady but still-present drive for vengeance. It is a long polearm with a weighted end, which can be powered up and cause shockwaves when striking an object. The waves come from the blunted end of the weapon, traveling up its length to charge up the attacking end.
> 
> Emi and Ikuro technically have a bankai. Due to differences in design and incomplete processing of the component materials, their zanpakuto work quite a bit differently, and instead of both having a bankai that are highly upgraded versions of the shikai, instead they have two shikai that can work together to form a unique bankai, which is called 詩野江加 (_Shinoeka_, phonetic man'yōgana for "Synoeca"; genus commonly referred to as 'drummer wasps'), and either one of them can wield it. It transforms the simple metal cannonball into a more broad, two-sided arrowhead of similar size and weight. The polearm part now charges from the weighted end, sending energy up towards the missile to increase its power further. The missile contains a venom that causes debilitating agony similar to its namesake, although due to how little the bankai has been tested, they are not actually aware of this yet. Kensei's relief from the venom after only a few seconds is due to them having deactivated the bankai when they did not detect any further hostility; had this not been the case, the pain could've lasted up to two hours. The specifics of how and why their bankai is so different will come up in a later fic.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Emi's and Ikuro's weapons occurred to me when I was simply writing down words I wanted to use as zanpakuto names. When I did my typical researching though, particular for animal aspects to apply to zanpakuto, I came across the drummer wasp, or the _Synoeca_ genus of paper wasps. They make a unique, and very ominous, drumming sound when they detect a threat by all beating their wings at the same tempo or scraping their mandibles against the hive walls. This is followed up by stinging, which as noted by Justin Schmidt, is effectively torture. Certain species of Synoeca have venom so powerful it can cause haemolytic activity (destruction of blood cells), and it is especially difficult for the body to metabolize, hence the long time for the pain to dissipate. When I ran across such a feared insect with the epithet of "drummer wasp", I immediately rushed to rework Emi's and Ikuro's weapons, resulting in Emi's then involving the word "barb" in the shikai name. The immense pain the bankai causes, which they are unaware of, is also representative in a matter that will come up later.


	14. The Rebellion Leader

Kenpachi Zaraki was running as fast as his legs would carry him. He didn't know where Yachiru was, which was a shame, as surely her sense of direction, abysmal as it was, would be better than his own. He wished he'd thought to stop and collect her before the fighting began in earnest, but he hadn't wanted to wait around and miss his chance for a big fight. Wherever she was, she'd be alright until they finally ran across one another again.

But damn it, it was a massive wall ringing the Seireitei! How could he not have seen it by now?!

"Shit..." he panted, still not sure if he was going the right way. Wasn't there anyone out here in the damn Rukon districts? How far out here had he been thrown by that bastard Kosuke, anyway, and why hadn't anyone shown up that he could ask for directions?! If he wasted any more time, he'd miss all of the fighting, and Yumichika would laugh at him again. Maybe he needed to get better at sensing spiritual pressure fields...

"Heeey!" he called out to the world around him at large, "ain't there anyone here?!?"

Naturally, no one answered, and he eventually got sick of looking at the road he'd been running down. Turning on his heel, he instead opted to move through this town a different way. He leapt up on top of a house, accidentally putting his foot through some of the roofing, and began roof-hopping until he came to what looked like the main thoroughfare, though he wouldn't know. He still could not see any sign of a gigantic wall.

Wait! Maybe even if he couldn't see the wall from here, or any of Seireitei beyond it, there were still landmarks out in the Rukongai he could use. The Shibas had that cannon, and you could see it for miles...did they stay anywhere near the west gate? He'd start looking for that, then, and when he got there, he'd pester the Shiba Clan head until she let him use that cannon to get back into the fighting...

"_Heeey!_" he began calling out, as he started leaping off of rooftops again and peering over what treetops he could, "_Shibaaaa!_"

* * *

Shinji stood back. The final barrier out of seventy-two, far above him in the sky, was glowing. Cracks appeared in the light, which seemingly glowed from thin air in a disc shape. The barrier took fully visible form only to shatter, as Shunsui Kyoraku fell down amidst the shards. Speeding downward past thirty-four other broken barriers, the tiny pinprick rapidly took shape, and Shinji had the wise idea to move to the very edge of the Senzaikyu's rooftop.

_CRASH!_

Just as he'd thought, the Captain Commander sped straight through the rooftop into the uppermost cell. Approaching the edge of the large hole left in the rooftop, he peered down, and found Kyoraku pulling himself up from a crouch on the cell floor, dusting himself off but none the worse for wear. Shinji hopped down into the cell with him, surveying him: had breaking through half the barriers between Seireitei and the Soul Palace taken a lot of energy out of him? From what he could guess and what he knew of Shunsui's power, it didn't seem so.

"So," came the Captain Commander's voice, "care to bring me up to speed?"

"Reports have come in from the field, the kido corps, and from the infirmary." Shinji answered. "Captains Lisa, Akon, and Rukia have been taken out, while Captain Zaraki has been removed from the battlefield and is lost somewhere in Rukon. Lieutenants Madarame, Omaeda, Kira, Iba, Kuna, and Matsumoto," he continued, counting off the defeated allies on his fingers, "have been put in infirm, while Lieutenant Kusajishi is unaccounted for, but probably with Kenpachi, and Squad 11 3rd seat Yumichika is also in infirm, along with hundreds of seated and unseated officers."

"That's quite a number." Shunsui said, his one visible eyebrow raising. "How long have we been at this?"

"About two hours." Shinji said, turning and leaping back up to the rooftop, while Shunsui did the same. "There were many, many more rebels than we thought, and they cut through the bulk of our troops very quickly. Analysis is being done at infirm, but according to what we've got, poison is being used. The rebel behavior is inoffensive, they're just attacking enough to leave a single slash wound and then moving on--Squad Four is spread well past thin trying to treat all the wounded. I've asked Captains Hitsugaya and Kuchiki in the south to fan out a little more northward, perhaps a little closer to here, since they seem to be good at handling the horde. They've sent reports that defeated rebels are teleporting away."

"Teleportation kido? But we can track that, can't we?"

"Nope." Shinji said, gruffly gazing in the direction of the SRDI. "I don't know if you got Akon's message, but our research center was one of the first things attacked, and we evacuated the kido corps. Besides--Tessai and Hachigen are still in the living world, though I don't know how much they'd be able to help anyway. Whatever they're using, it's not a kido spell we've got monitors for. However, we have managed to capture two rebels, thanks to Lieutenant Momo. They might be able to tell us where the defeated rebels are going, and how to undo the kido barriers in the north."

"That'd be helpful." Shunsui remarked. "Odds are that if we can dissolve the one here, we can probably dissolve the one up in Soul Palace. It must be a complex work, to be able to keep both Unohana and Kisuke imprisoned for this long. But what about the rest of the captains and lieutenants?"

"Anyone I didn't mention was still fighting at last check, except for Nanao, who should still be trying to get through the barrier."

"That's good." Shunsui said, and Shinji noted an admirable attempt to hide his relief. "But..."

"Something on your mind?"

"Yeah...that message from Akon...I can't see a rebel just allowing him to do that, can you?"

"It does seem a little suspicious..." Shinji agreed. "You don't usually broadcast your victories to the enemy. Unless..."

"Unless letting your enemy know where they got hit, and making sure to let them know you left one of their strongest allies alive, was what they wanted?"

"You think it's a trap?" he asked.

"Almost certainly." Shunsui said, nodding. "They probably intend to lure a high-level officer in."

"Sounds like something Aizen or Gin would pull..." Shinji muttered, hand drifting to his zanpakuto. "You want me to go?"

"No." Shunsui said, his hands on his own two zanpakuto now. "It's my job as Captain Commander to stick my neck out, and besides--someone's got to be here to let the new Squad Zero know what's going on once they make it down here. Not to mention, someone'll need to take over in case I'm defeated--and we both know Kuchiki and Hitsugaya would make terrible Commanders."

* * *

"Well, if it isn't another big, sweaty, soul reaper."

Kenpachi didn't see where this guy got off calling him that. He could've said the same thing of this man, who was covered in sweat and wearing a bandana. He was pretty sure this was...Kukaku? No, Kaien--

"Who the hell are you, and whaddya need?"

Kenpachi huffed, moving forward with his sword scraping the ground.

"I need ta use yer cannon."

"I asked ya yer name, asshole!" came the somewhat rotund man's angry voice, while he eyed the sword. Kenpachi would've sheathed it, but he didn't carry one of those on him.

"Kenpachi Zaraki." he said, stabbing the end of his blade into the ground and using the freed hand to scratch the back of his his head. "So are ya gonna let me use yer cannon, or not?! Come on, I'm in a hurry!"

"You must think we just let people use our cannon for fuckin' day trips!" roared the angry man, who seemed to be sweating more than before despite not exerting himself. "I think you need to get yourself outta here--scram! The Shiba Clan doesn't care for you, so get lost!"

Kenpachi strode forward, his teeth grit together harshly. The man scrambled backwards, but Kenpachi had a hand around his throat and was lifting him by the neck. He felt a powder-like substance under his palms and realized that the guy was bearing a coating of powders, probably left over from firework materials. He flexed his spiritual pressure, causing the ground and the walls of the house closeby to shake.

"If I gotta, I'll go in there and find out how to work it myself, ya little bastard."

Truth be told, he seriously doubted his ability to do that. But when he wanted something, people usually listened. He had no idea why this guy was being so damn stubborn anyway--weren't the Shibas on the Soul Society's side? The Gotei 13's side? Hell, their cannon was built for the express purpose of launching things to Soul Palace! He knew that much!

"_F...fuck...you..._" gasped the man, blood vessels in his eyes bursting.

He threw the man down on the ground, watching him gasp for breath, and reached behind him for his sword, but his hand never made it there. His vision was suddenly blocked, as a hand was slipped over his own face.

"_Inemuri_."

Kenpachi felt an extreme dizziness, and then lost consciousness.

* * *

Shunsui was moving at high speed, unseen. Moving through the shadows was one of the more universal abilities of his zanpakuto, allowing him to cross large distances quickly so long as a shadow presented itself somewhere. He now found himself in the lot ahead of the Shinigami Research and Development Institute, peering out at it from a shadow on a wall.

_Is that the bulkhead wall? How on earth did it get bent up like that?_

He maneuvered silently, sliding within shadows to the inside of the development institute. Despite daylight outside and the doors being wide open, light vanished very quickly, not allowing him to see much of what was inside. He'd have to move blind. Or close to it--his eyepatch carried some rudimentary sensory gizmos inside the thin cloth. If nothing else, he could at least avoid bumping into anyone with a large enough pressure signature.

_Damn. I need to come here more often. I'd have no idea where to go even if I could see, let alone blind...where would Akon be?_

Shunsui figured there had to be light _somewhere_ in this complex, and where he'd find a light, he'd find a shadow. And if not, he'd have to risk his position to cast a light with kido, assuming that would even work. He reached out, willing his zanpakuto to find a shadow. After a minute or two, he found one, quite a distance away, and...down? Somewhere deeper into the complex. He sank, enveloped by the darkness and resurfacing in a new area, though still veiled.

He watched and listened, peering out. He was staring up at the legs and back of what seemed to be an elderly woman wearing a kimono. Though the surrounding area was still dark, she seemed to be holding some sort of light--a candle?

"How fascinating..." he heard her say, confirming that she was at least older than he probably was. He also heard a shuffling of papers, and the clicking of fingers on a keyboard. "We owed more to Akon than we ever realized, didn't we? ...Yes, he's in the Rukongai, that one. Do you want me to--?"

_Could it have been her that blasted that bulkhead off its hinges? I'd better be careful. I know better than to misjudge someone for their age._

Shunsui chose to act quickly. Surfacing, he swung both blades out to his side, certain not to hit her with them, before bringing them in and crossing them under the woman's chin. He noted, as he did this, that she was a head shorter than he was, and that yes, the small circle of light being cast around them was coming from a candle she held in her left hand. In her right hand were several folders full of documents, most of which had gone slipping to the floor. He kept his grip on Katen and Kyokotsu tight, pulling her close enough that she could not slip out from under his blades.

The woman, he noted, did not appear all that surprised, or frightened, or the least bit intimidated. She spoke quite calmly to him.

"My my," she said, "I've seen bold men in my day, but shouldn't you introduce yourself before you hold a woman close?"

Shunsui did not quite know how to respond to this. He was used to being the older, lecherous party teasingly flirting with the younger party, not the other way around. He didn't know this woman...did he? Now that he thought about it, he was sure she seemed a bit familiar. Who was she?

He opened his mouth, but before he had a chance to speak, the woman had acted: raising the candle close to her face, she blew, and Shunsui was plunged into darkness.

There were several sounds at once. There was the sound of papers hitting the floor, but it couldn't entirely mask the sound of flash step being used, and he felt the woman's form vanish from in front of his chest. Shunsui, unwilling to fall for a trap, leapt backwards, blind in the darkness, but he felt resistance. There was a sound of ripping and crunching, and he yanked, shuffling backward and pulling his shorter sword back from whatever had grabbed it.

Light returned to the room in full, and Shunsui squinted. The eyepatch over his empty socket was giving a new reading, but it wasn't helping him adjust to the light. He held his swords aloft to deter an attack, and as his remaining eye swam and blinked until he could see properly, he realized what had happened.

"Kyokotsu!"

His short sword had been bent and twisted horrifically, as if a hand had closed around it and crunched it together in the middle like so much aluminum foil. He reached out with his mind, attempting to contact his zanpakuto spirit, but only Katen was responding. Turning the sword in his hand, he realized its gleam was that of gold, not silver.

"What did you--?"

Looking up, he found that the woman was not the only hostile in the room anymore. They appeared to be in an office, with several filing cabinets lining the walls. Standing ahead of him was the elderly woman, and inbetween her and himself stood a tall, black-haired man. He had one of the more bizarre appearances Shunsui had ever seen, and he didn't usually have room to talk in that department. Aside from all-black clothing, both hands were enveloped in shiny, elbow-length gloves. One was as black as the rest of his clothing, but with three glinting stripes. The other one seemed gold, and had the inverse accents. He was stood, knees bent slightly, protectively in front of the older woman. It had clearly been him who had deformed Kyokotsu. Shunsui met his eyes, a greenish blue, and found them lit with...excitement?

"Now then, who exactly are you?"

The man spoke in a deep rasp, but not to Shunsui.

"Ane, get back to the hideout. Make sure that Daishin and Haruo get back there, too. Once that's done, relax--your part in this is done."

Shunsui watched the woman raise a hand to her chest, just above her kimono, and press an odd marking just under her collar. She vanished in a flash of green light.

"And as for you, _Captain Commander_...you should find a spot you like that's a lot less cramped if you want to last very long. Not to mention less populated, if you want to be the only casualty."

Shunsui narrowed his eyes.

"Heh, your big talk doesn't intimidate me." he said, a small smile twitching at the corner of his lips despite himself. "But for now, you're right--pardon me for a moment."

With Kyokotsu out of commission, he'd lost his ability to hide in the shadows, along with the other games that she was best at. So he'd have to get out of here the old-fashioned way. He lifted his hand, pointing it toward the ceiling, but keeping his eye on the enemy.

"Hado number fifty-seven: _Daichi Tenyō_."

The ceiling above him morphed, pulling itself upward, until it broke, rising in chunks past the floor one story up to the next ceiling. That ceiling, too, swelled forward and broke, revealing daylight two stories up. Thankfully, nobody was in the way.

With that, he leapt upward. Now on the roof of the SRDI, he sped off, hoping to find a place to the northwest that was deserted. His flash step was fast, though far from the fastest in the Gotei 13. Occasionally, he looked behind him, keeping an eye out for the hostile. What he saw each time he looked back indicated that the enemy wasn't having any trouble keeping up, but rather was choosing to remain a good distance behind. That, unfortunately, was a smart move. Shunsui's hopes for perhaps avoiding a long, drawn-out fight with a good surprise strike were pretty much zero now.

Finally finding a place he liked, he slid to a stop, hopping down to a wide street crossing below. There was silence out here, and it was most likely that they were completely alone. Turning on his heel, he met the other man's eyes as he flashed into place.

* * *

Kenpachi blinked, slowly awakening until he saw a lantern hanging above him, moths buzzing around it. He rubbed his eyes, and then sat up, surveying the room around him. He appeared to be in a dingy cellar of some kind. A table and chairs were pushed up against the wall. From what he could see, there was one other person in the room: a woman, wearing a headband and smoking a pipe. One of her arms was missing. As he watched, she got up from her cross-legged sitting position and strode over to him.

"Ah, you're awake."

Kenpachi quickly remembered what had happened. Someone must've knocked him out with kido--and he recognized this woman's voice! He reached for his sword again, only to realize it wasn't nearby. Checking around him, he confirmed it wasn't in the room. There was only one door.

"You'll get your sword back when I'm convinced you're not going to use it."

Kenpachi was suddenly staring at the pointed mouthpiece of a pipe, jabbed very close to his eye.

"And if you ever lay your hands on my brother again," the woman said, "ain't no zanpakuto, ain't no flash step, ain't no kido or hakuda, gonna save you. You understand me?"

A shudder ran up Kenpachi's spine. He didn't have a good feel of any spiritual pressure, but he knew the Shibas were combat-capable. One of their own had been a lieutenant once, after all--maybe he could get a good fight out of her? Surely she knew who he was, and she had to be strong if she was talking to him like she wasn't even a little bit impressed by him--

"_And stop getting excited._" she said abruptly, popping his little idea balloon. He looked up at her, where she was staring down at him with an expression of anger mixed with derision.

"You must be the Shiba Clan head," he said, digging in his ear with his finger. "Ganji, right?"

The woman had started smiling when he recognized her, only to look shocked and aghast when he actually named her. A hand was swiftly brought across his head, which he barely felt, but which forced him into a tilt.

"_GANJU!_" she shrieked, aiming her voice upward through the ceiling. "_YOU BEEN TELLING FOLKS YOU'RE THE CLAN HEAD AGAIN?!?_"

"_NOOO!_" came a cry back that Kenpachi recognized as from the man he had harassed earlier. Eh, that much was probably due to his own ignoance. He never remembered names well, after all.

"Listen up, Tiny," she said, returning her attention to Kenpachi. "Yes, I'm the Shiba Clan head, but my name is Kukaku Shiba and you'd damn well better not forget it again! Now what the hell brings you to my home, when I was just starting to think I'd been free from people pestering me?"

She strode over to the table, dragging it over and placing it between them, and tossing him a chair. Kenpachi took it and sat, feeling it creak under his weight. She sat down opposite him.

"I need ta use yer cannon." he repeated, imagining he knew what the answer was.

Kukaku took a long drag off of her pipe, not making any effort to hurry. She blew the smoke directly into Kenpachi's face, but he wasn't intimidated.

"I guess you're dumb, huh? You oughta know I can't do that."

Dumb he may be, but Kenpachi nonetheless took some amount of offense. He grit his teeth together, obstinate.

"And why the hell not?"

"Well, number one," she said, lifting her leg up and crossing it over her other one, "it's broken down. We ain't done with repairs yet. I couldn't fire you outta that thing if I wanted to. And even if it was still capable of firing, I think it goes without saying that when your business is explosives, you want whatever tools you're using to be in nothing but perfect shape."

Kenpachi grit his teeth together. Now what was he going to do?

"Number two, and more importantly" she continued, thrusting her pipe in his direction again, "I don't like you."

This put Kenpachi out quite a bit. Plenty of people didn't like him on principle, but he couldn't remember doing anything to antagonize _these_ folks. Of course...that didn't mean he hadn't...it just meant he didn't remember them. Man, count on a noble clan to remember how to be petty at exactly the wrong times...

"And number three," she continued, even though in Kenpachi's opinion, she'd more than made her point, "and even more important than that, let's say my cannon did work, and I was going to shoot you out of it. Well, that'd be aiding you, which'd mean going against the other side of this little fight you idiots have going on over at the Seireitei. An' I ain't willin' to do that."

"Why the hell not?!" he squawked. This reason in particular, he took issue with. "You helped out when Aizen was fuckin' around with the Sokyoku! An' you sent Ichigo's crew up to Soul Palace back durin' the Quincy War! Why the hell you suddenly scared to stick yer neck out?!"

"You be quiet." she said brusquely. "It ain't 'cuz I'm scared, and if you insinuate that again, those brass balls'a yours are comin' off. For all I care, you soul reapers are all the same, an' I can't stand the lot of you. I'll put my two cents in whenever some god-complex maniac like Aizen or Yuh-huh-vakh is threatening the whole place, but you'd better not expect my help until circumstances are that dire. And for this occasion in particular, I happen to _like_ some of the dudes raising a ruckus up at your little 'court of pure souls'. If I'm gonna support a side, I'm supporting _theirs_, so there."

"But I gotta get back into the fight!" he said, bringing a fist down on the table and cracking it. "I don't give a damn who wins! All I want's a good fight, and if I got anything ta say about it, I'm gettin' one! So you got directions, or what?"

"Nope." Kukaku said, mellow once more. "I have no idea where the Seireitei is. Don't make a habit of going there too often."

Kenpachi dropped his head on the table, groaning in frustration. For a minute or two, there were no sounds besides that of Kukaku huffing her pipe and blowing smoke. Then, suddenly, there was a ringing and a buzzing sound. Kenpachi heard a soul phone clicked open. That...was weird. Did anyone own soul phones all the way out here? Weren't they standard issue for soul reaper seated officers only?

"Kukaku Shiba, the fuck do you want?"

Kenpachi raised his head.

"Ah huh...yeah? Hang on a sec, hang on a sec. Yeah. Send it to me. Alright, I'll get it done."

The soul phone was clicked shut.

"Yer in luck, Zaraki. One of my boys who was working on my cannon before this little rebellion took up all of his time has sent me some finalized corrections. But I'll need some help to get it done, since Ganju's a big lug and too slow. Whaddya say, you wanna go on a launch?"

Kenpachi stood up.

"Fuck yeah! Bring me to the cannon, I'll carry the big stuff!"

* * *

There was silence for a few moments.

...

"...Shunsui Kyoraku."

The dark-haired man's eyes stared into his, unblinking. Slowly, a small, mischievous smile came onto his face.

"Kazuo Zaizen."

"So, Kazuo," he said, keeping his tone light and friendly the way he always did, "what say you and I have a quick chat about this little rebellion you've got going on?"

Kazuo tilted his head, and the fingers on his black-gloved hand flexed.

"This rebellion is a long, long time coming." he rasped. "We intend to permanently crumble the power dynamic held in place by the Seireitei, on behalf of the citizens of the Rukongai."

Huh. That was a tad disappointing. No ulterior motive? No secret goal they were working towards for ultimate power, or the like? Then again, maybe he was lying. Shunsui spoke up again.

"Alright...and what makes you think this rebellion is going to go any differently than the rebellions of ages past?" he asked, citing recorded rebellions that only and Unohana would still remember that had been crushed by the Gotei 13. "And on that note, why should I treat you different from the other villains who've sought to destroy the Gotei 13 in the past? Like, say...Tosen. You ever heard of Kaname Tosen? He was a man that embraced violence and murder while trying to destroy what he saw as a corrupt society, too."

The Captain Commander was slightly taken aback by the way Kazuo's features had warped while he was speaking. The mischievous smile had fallen off of his face to be replaced with a look of cold fury. As he watched, Kazuo spat on the ground.

"You ignorance and facade are _bleeding_ out of you." he said, acid in his voice. "It's like that cheap persona, that of a decent man upholding a necessary evil, isn't even there. If you wanted what was best for even a single person in Soul Society right now, the thing you should've just said was 'state your demands'."

Shunsui was frowning now himself, taking issue with this characterization of himself, but Kazuo continued speaking before he could say anything.

"It doesn't surprise me, though. No matter the current environment, you're a product of a world created and ruled by that thug, Yamamoto. The part of you swayed towards goodness and anything resembling self-sacrifice died with Ukitake."

There was a sensation Shunsui could only describe as white-hot behind his skull, and he moved faster than he'd thought himself capable of. There was a loud snapping sound, and then silence, punctuated thereafter by the sound of metal clattering to the ground. He took half a second to realize what had happened. The first was obvious, of course--he'd sped forward, lunging with his sword arm in a wide swipe, in a blind fury. Outstretched in front of him, its arc completed, was the hand that held Kyokotsu, or what was left of her--that much being only the handle and a bit of blade, glinting gold, with the clattering of metal having been the rest of the blade, snapped off when Kazuo answered with his own swipe, so fast Shunsui hadn't even seen it. Kazuo was right next to him, but the both of them stood silent and motionless. His eyes peered up to his enemy, stinging.

"You know," he said, his own voice suddenly hoarse, "I've never been one for pride and sentiment, even for the dead...but if I didn't feel like cutting you to ribbons before, I sure as hell do now."

"Facts are facts." whispered Kazuo without looking down at him. "Your inaction, your complacency, over the last ten years speaks louder than Yamamoto's inaction over the last thousand ever did...nevermind words."

Shunsui swung.


	15. Diamond Dust

Rose held his zanpakuto with both hands, ready to strike. The man with the bloodshot eyes was still staring at him, while the last of the butterfly wings drifted to the ground. Rose could see that he wore a filthy overcoat a tad too big for him, full of rips and tears that spoke of extreme use, heavy combat, or both. There was no immediate attempt to attack, nor to explain, so the Visored chanced a question.

"What do you mean by 'business'?" he asked.

The man laughed, a loud, throaty laugh that sounded healthier than Rose would've thought possible from his appearance.

"Ain't it obvious? C'mon. All the best artists and musicians got their best work done while high off their asses."

Rose was confused. "Are you propositioning me to do drugs with--"

There was a clang of metal. The man had gone for the sword held at his waist, and Rose had lunged across the gap between them, bringing his sword down, only to be blocked.

"Intoxicate, Y--"

"Hado #1: _Shō!_"

His white energy blast, pointed from his finger, struck the man right in the jaw, doing no damage whatsoever but keeping him from finishing his release command. Rose pulled back and thrusted his blade forward, but the other man easily dodged it with flash step and swung. With his own sword brought up, Rose clashed again with the man, and testing his strength, found that he couldn't overpower him.

"Hado #11: Tsuzuri Raiden."

Rose jumped back, hand stinging and nearly causing him to lose his grip on his zanpakuto--the enemy's sword now flashed with arcs of electricity.

_Well, no sense in delaying. Better that I handle this quickly_, he thought._  
_

Rose swung his blade high, neglecting the release command as _Kinshara_ came down in the form of a long golden whip with a thorned end.

"Identify yourself. I would know who I'm going to dispatch by name."

The man gave another of his lazy smiles, and licked his lips. One of his eyes was blinking more rapidly than the other.

"Banri Ariyoshi." he answered, lowering his sword. "And that girl over there is Miya Azai." he said, gesturing. Rose's eyes followed the direction of his fingers, and found that he was pointing towards the alleyway where the flying chakram had floated off to. 

_!!!_

Rose turned on his heel, having heard the sound of flash step being used, and brought Kinshara up. A blade came up against it, knocking his hand out of the way. Before he had time to do more than register that it was a woman who was attacking him, he was hit hard in the stomach, a double palm thrust knocking the wind out of him and sending him skipping back across two rooftops, stumbling on the final step. He regained himself quickly, watching his opponents. He wasn't left watching long--both of them crossed the distance with shunpo, and then Rose was swinging Kinshara wildly, lashing to ward away strikes and using the handle to deflect them where they landed. Banri and Miya alternated between strikes, neither one using anything resembling a trained form but making up for it with speed and force.

"That deer horn knife that my friend is wielding is called _Soyokaze_." came Banri's drawl as Rose deflected it off of his handle again, feeling it cut a lock of his hair as it flew by him. "And my little baby here is _Yadokugaeru_."

"Soyokaze, that's quite a beautiful name for a blade," Rose said, leaping backward with shunpo to escape a particurly fast lunge. And as for the other one...Yadokugaeru. 'Dart Frog'...The name almost certainly means the blade is somehow envenomed, so I guess that means I should keep it from touching me. "Since the two of you are going to fight me at once, I see no reason to hold back--Kinshara Sōkyoku Dai Jūichiban," he called, swinging his whip in a whirling arc around him as he felt a sonic pulse leave him from the handle and travel its length, "Izayoi Bara!"

He swung, landing the thorn end of the whip in a tile directly between Banri and Miya. Both of them flashed, and everything within thirty feet of the thorn was torn apart by a powerful sonic pulse.

_Hmm...they seemed a tad too ready for that. Did they know of that attack beforehand?_

"_Intoxicate! Yadokugaeru!_"

Rose looked up to where Banri was standing on a higher rooftop. His sword was glowing white, and Rose heard shunpo.

_!!!_

He held his whip and arm aloft, attempting to deflect harm, but the glowing blade was not swung at him. It lost its form, and he leapt back as he realized what was going to happen an instant before it did. The sword had dissolved into a spread of dust crystals, which Banri had, with a strong exhale, blown at him!

"Aghck!"

Rose hadn't thought he'd been hit by it, but his nose was itching something fierce. No sooner had he landed a ways away with another flash than he swung his whip wildly, forcing the spinning chakram blade away from him again.

_These two are fast...not to mention, that whirling blade is flying through space several times faster than it was when I was following it. I've got to get creative._

Rose turned, seeing the wind-and-fire blade hurling through the air back towards him like a boomerang, and swung Kinshara again. His aim was true, and the frisbee-like blade was caught on the end of it, oscillating rapidly. Rose spun, and hurled the whip, flinging Soyokaze off of it, straight towards Banri.

"Yrgh!"

Rose smiled to himself as Banri tried to avoid the rogue blade and was grazed across his arm. He watched the chakram revolve in the air, returning to the hand of Miya, who--

"_Senbō no Noroi: Hyacinth!_"

The effect wasn't quite visible, but he could tell what was happening by the way the woman's long, dirty-blonde hair was pulled towards the chakram, which was first held at arm's length and then allowed to float a short distance away, avoiding the risk of an impromptu haircut. Soyokaze began to spin faster and faster, until the sound of the wind rushing over its metal surface rose to a sinister whistle.

_That means 'curse of envy'...Hyacinth, I think I studied him. Wasn't that the man in Hellenic--_

But Rose didn't have time to finish his train of thought. With a fierce movement, it was sent hurtling towards him, but Rose was ready, and easily deflected it, even at the higher speed. He flexed his fingers around Kinshara's handle, noting how a slight increase in effort had been needed to deflect it it.

_Wait--!!!_

_Clang!_

Rose spun, striking out, and losing part of his sleeve to Soyokaze--it had spun and turned mid-air, at least thrice as quickly as before. It bounced off the tile and flew low, then came back around a second time.

_Clang! Cling! Clang! Cling!_

Rose's appreciation for the beautiful name and design of this weapon was quickly being tempered by frustration with the difficulty he was having in countering its attacks. He was overcome. Each wild swing of his whip sent the chakram hurtling away from him, but it seemed drawn to him like a magnet--no matter how hard he swung, the spinning blade turned mid-air and came hurtling back towards him. He could only keep moving, occasionally dodging the blade and hopping from rooftop to rooftop. This could only end poorly, as even if he were able to keep track of both opponents--all three, really, if Soyokaze's independent status were considered--he was going to be worn down eventually.

_Cling! Clang! Glang! Cla-clang!_

"Ergh!"

Rose had seen it coming, tried to dodge out of the way using flash step, but Banri had been one step ahead of him. Rose took a palm strike to the face, being sent flying. Pain surged through his face as he went tumbling over tile, ending up sprawled on his back. He pulled up a hand to his face to check that his nose wasn't broken, but just as quickly removed it, hurling himself to the side. Soyokaze had come arcing up, and was hurling itself downward at him. There was a sound like a motor backfire as the spinning blade dug itself into the rooftop next to him.

"Augh! Agh, agh!"

Rose coughed and hacked, unsure of why his throat and nostrils were protesting the way they were. Struggling up onto one knee, Rose turned back, and saw the chakram yank itself free from the gash it had carved into the tiling, flying past his ear and back to its owner. Returning his gaze to the rebels, he saw it return to her hand, and saw Banri stroll up behind her. He opened his mouth to speak, but only managed another cough.

"I have to say," came Banri's voice, "it's impressive that you can fight two-on-one without yaurbangukahhi."

...???

"Wh...what?" Rose asked, sure that he hadn't heard correctly. "Say that again!"

Banri's grin seemed to grow.

"I said, it's impressive that you can fighdth twoonnonone withghahdgbangirertaika."

Something was very wrong. Staying on one knee and putting a hand to his chest, Rose suddenly realized that he was breathing quite heavily, even though he hadn't been fighting much yet. Worry began to overtake him.

"You!" he called, addressing Banri in particular. Neither he nor Miya had made another move to attack yet. "What was it in your hand that you hit me with when you punched me just now?!"

Banri's bloodshot eyes seemed to dance in front of Rose.

"It's not a poison. Not without a much larger dose, anyway. It's a halcirnaidcjnadsn."

Rose blinked, a slight stinging in his eyes. What had he just said? But Banri seemed to understand his confusion without him saying anything this time.

"Hah◦loo◦sin◦oh◦jenn." he said slowly, and despite the tone and pitch moving up and down, warbling back and forth in his ears, the word made sense. Hallucinogen... He was left stunned.

"But--but that's impossible!" he protested, panting. "It hasn't even been thirty seconds since you hit me with that dose! You can't possibly have a drug that takes effect that quickly!"

"Ah ah ah," came that drawling, taunting voice, somehow still making sense in his ears. He was speaking slower now. "Y̵our̴ fir͝s̵t ḑo͏s͘e wa̧s a̛ fęw m͏inut͏es̡ ago̵,͘ ͘wa͜sn't it͞? Y͟ou̡ fir͠st͢ ͠įn̡haled͏ ̧s҉o̕me҉ ͏choice͜ ̶fr͜ugs whe͞n̛ I͝ ̵s͝cat̷t̸ere̛d͞ t͝ho̕se ͝butt͟e͢rf͠ly wi͝ngs͞."

The butterfly wings...a horrible realization was dawning on Rose.

Back in the living world, he'd had a chance to study the butterflies of the natural order, but in most ways they were similar to the Jigokucho he'd grown up with. Even with their mystical origins within the Senkaimon and Dangai, the black ones weren't different from living world butterflies in that they still needed to eat. Somehow, these two rebels had come up with a drug concoction whose scent appealed to the jigokuchi, then used the chakram's wind powers to spread it across the Seireitei...and then the butterflies had swarmed and converged on a single point in pursuit of nutrients, and as they'd flown through the air, the drugs had collected on their wings, and even more so once they'd collected themselves on Banri, who'd no doubt been covered in the substances himself...and naturally, the drugs he'd collected on their wings had been scattered through the air when he'd blasted those poor creatures apart with a casual wave of his spiritual pressure field, exposing him to the drug before the fight had even started. Not only that, but the fighting he'd been doing had probably been making this situation worse without him even realizing it, his heart rate and increased blood flow helping the hallucinogen to spread and affect him faster.

His vision was starting to wobble and melt.

_Damn...so those theatrics weren't for nothing, then. That's one of the most clever traps I've seen in recent memory. He's dealt a critical affliction to me and robbed the Seireitei of a valuable communications tool in one go..._

"D̔́ͭaͪ͆ͩmn̆̐ͪͤ̍͐̿ ̄ͤ̓̌ͯ̀i̽̎͗͊̑t̓ͨ́̊̓ͫ ͬ̋a͗l͒̃l̚.ͭ̈́̈́̌͒.ͦ́̌.̽dͣͮ́̍a̋̈́̊͛ͦ̂̋m̿ͩ͊̾n̽͋̉̏̍ ̾̏ͣ͒ýo͒̍u͌̓͐͐ͤ́̇ ͨͬͫ̇͗b̊oťh̊͒ tͧo̍̓̑͗ͪ̌ ́ͬ̊̚ȟ̾ͧͭe͊l̍̂̉̈́ͫl̑.ͤ̉̋͗." he uttered past gritted teeth.

"I̛͏f̕ ̛̕y̴͠ou̧'̧͘r̴͢ȩ ̸̸a̶̷lre̶a̵d̷̡͢y҉ ̴t̴̕h͜i͞s̢͠ ͏͟f̸̵a͡r̷͏ ͞a͢͡l̛͝o͏̡nģ̵ ̴i͏̸̕n̵͜ ͠yo̡u͞r̷̛ sy̴͟m̴͘p̴͜ţ͡o̶̴̷m҉͠s҉,̧̢ ͏͠iţ͠ ̶mi͘͜͝g̡̕h̢t̷ no҉̕t̵ ͏̵̵b͢e̕ ̢͘͡a̡͟͝ g̨oǫd̢͟͡ ̛҉i̕͢͠d҉e̷͟a ̶͟fo̡͜ŗ̸ ̵͝yo̶̡͘u͜ t̷o̶̡͡ u҉s̡̛e͡ ̡͡b͟͟͞a҉̢͜n̴͢͡ka͞i.̧" came Banri's warped drawl, and Rose had to smack his own ear to be sure he had heard correctly, to parse the words and make sense of the garbled nonsense they seemed to be when they reached him.

Ban...kai?

That was right! He had a bankai--hell, he had more than a bankai! He was a captain and a Visored! Focusing his energy within himself, he first moved to unleash his true power.

"Bankai!" he yelled. "K̴҉i̧͘͟͠n̷͜͡͏s̷h̡͘͟͞a͟r̷̵͡a̡̧͘ ͟͟͠͞B̷̧u͘̕t̷̶̕ơ̸̄͘͡d̨a̵͜͡n̢̨͠!"

He could just barely tell that this measure was successful. His connection with Kinshara, though still present, was starting to slip. The thorned whip and handle in his hand vanished, to be replaced by a conductor's baton. Above him, a pair of massive hands, one holding a matching baton, stood at the ready. His dancing troupe occupied the rooftops to either side of him. Finally, Rose drew his free hand over his face, summoning his Hollow mask.

The shape of the plague doctor formed over his face, and as red saturation overtook his vision, it washed away the blurring and melting he'd been experiencing, leaving his vision clear and exposing to Rose just how far his symptoms had been progressing, even that quickly. But it didn't matter now. Behind his eyeholes, he peered at Banri and Miya, and was pleased to find the two of them looking somewhat bewildered.

"I will turn the tables on the sly ones! Before your eyes, upon your ears, and within your hearts, I will make you suffer your very reality melting around you! Listen now!"

* * *

Renji was biting the inside of his cheek.

For a captain, he had put on an embarrassing first show. He had succumbed to the kido-linking techniques these rebels used no less than twice. Unlike certain others among the Gotei 13, he didn't really have any sort of answer to binding spells being used on him, especially with the odd way these cables worked. After escaping the first time, he'd had the brilliant idea to simply cut a swath through the opponents before they could trap him, which...hadn't worked all that well. Finally, he'd realized that the best thing for it was to simply stay out of sight and use low-level bakudo en masse and keep spells from being aimed at him to begin with, which had seemed to work fairly well.

Whoever was leading the rebellion on this end, they weren't exposing themselves. Renji knew better than to think that the two opponents who were upon him now, stronger than the horde though they were, were intended to be capable of beating him.

_Cla-kssssssshhhh!_

The flail, which had been hit dead-on by the chain blade Renji wielded, was sent flying back and out of the way of Zabimaru's blade, and its owner had to duck and roll to avoid being caught on its end. While their weapons had similar throwing styles, and both pushed the most force on the end of their weapons, the difference was that Zabimaru was essentially powered by spring-load, generating more blades at its base as it continued to stretch and extend. 'Shujin', on the other hand, was a simpler weapon that relied on the single application of force to its weight. It wouldn't keep up with Zabimaru no matter how hard it was thrown!

The opponent seemed to know that, as instead of trying to enter another lock with him, instead chose to leap high to avoid Renji's second strike with his chain blade, swinging his own mace down in an arc. Renji dodged to the side, watching the mace create a crater in the ground. Renji opted for a third strike with Zabimaru, while his opponent was busy reeling his weapon in.

Zabimaru's end blade hit a wall, having failed to hit the man as he stubbornly dodged yet again, but evidently he'd had the same idea--his flail now hurling straight for him. Renji remained unconcerned, by now more than used to people trying to exploit Zabimaru's most visible flaw that had long since stopped hindering him. Flash step took him out of the way of the weapon, and indeed brought him close enough that he could smack the rebel good while his chain blade finished retracting. He drew back his fist, and--

“Agck!”

Renji felt himself hit with a stunning amount of force, enough so that he barely registered the ditch he’d carved into the ground with his body as he skidded to a halt. For a moment, he wondered if he’d made a baffling error and somehow been hit dead-on with the flail. Swinging himself back up onto his feet, he instead saw that what had hit him was a fierce strike from the fist of the other combatant, who up until now he'd managed to ignore.

_Hang on, he knew I was going to use flash step at that moment, didn't he? Was it luck that he guessed where I'd be, or...?_

He wondered if maybe he should perhaps switch targets. The big man with the flail had strong attacks, but the bare-fisted one was both strong, and fast...

Flash step in a zig-zag pattern took him close, Zabimaru now retracted to sword form, and he swung down against the red-eyed man. As he expected, the swing was dodged by a swift swerve to the side, and a fist came up to strike while he was recovering. Renji blocked it with his free arm, and swung his sword low this time. The other man leapt up, but the captain had him this time--the hand that held Zabimaru reversed grip, and swung the fist closed around the handle straight into the other man's gut. He went flying, and a smile came to Renji's face.

He pressed his advantage, crossing the new gap with shunpo again, only for the sound of a chain to draw his attention.

!!!

Renji's flash step was interrupted and he skidded, ducking, nearly having been bowled over by the bigger man's flail. He moved under the chain, and continued his charge forward, ready to cut the more troublesome of the man up, but the chain clinked again, and Renji turned his head back, seeing it being rapidly retracted. The flail flew back towards its owner, only for him to kick it straight at Renji.

Another duck, and this time he halted his attack entirely. Clearly, he wasn't going to be able to concentrate on only one of them at a time, or the other was always going to use the opportunity to get a heavy hit in. He'd just have to balance fighting the two of them at once. Luckily, he had some ideas on how to do that.

He ran, moving far across the lot that served as their arena. So far, these two were far more inclined to dodge his strikes than to try and tank them. He'd proved just now that although the bare-fisted fighter was good, his strikes weren't strong enough to get through a prepared opponent's defenses...he had a good idea of how he was going to get his strikes off and catch these two off-guard, but first he wanted to see what it took out of him to try and defend against their attacks.

The bigger man swung his flail, but this time Renji didn't dodge. The enormous metal ball met his Zabimaru as he held it in front of him as a shield, the same way a broadsword might. He skidded backward, the force of the man's swing and the weight of the weapon forcing him to put all of his strength into keeping it at bay. Still, his own zanpakuto wasn't giving...good, now he had a good gauge of the other man's attack strength. And now, he could...

"Hado #11: Tsuzuri Raiden!"

Both his own chainblade, and the flail on a chain touching it, were covered in a bright light as electricity flashed along them. The rebel, whose ball and chain was attached to a manacle around his leg, was violently shocked, and fell to one knee, stunned.

_Perfect! Now I just need to..._

There was the sound of shunpo next to him, but this time Renji was ready. The thinner, white-haired man tried to strike out at him with a kick, but Renji grabbed the offending foot and swung him off his feet. Spinning in a circle, Renji pulled off a launch that would've made Ikkaku proud--throwing the albino with great force at his still-recovering partner.

"Hrgh!"

Both men were bowled over, head over foot, and Renji saw his chance. Swinging Zabimaru, he sent the blades hurtling forward, ready to spill blood. Of the two men recovering, only rhe albino was aware of the attack and made to flash step out of the way in time. Nonetheless, Renji's mark hit the man behind him, who was still shaking off the shock of the kido spell.

"Aaargh!"

Renji's mark was dead-on. Zabimaru carved through the man, digging its blade into his chest and shoulder, causing a spurt of blood to fly out. With a cry of pain, the larger man freed himself from the blade, which had arced upward as it passed through his shoulder. Renji wished he could say that this was going to do more to debilitate the man, but he had already seen how this brutish rebel was more than capable of using his zanpakuto with his legs. Nonetheless, this ought to help. As the other man staggered to his feet, Renji retracted his blade, and realized the fight was already his. If he could inflict this much damage with one good slash, he wouldn't even need his bankai. And if he were to guess just from body build alone, the man with the flail was the tougher of the two by far--the albino would probably break with a single strike.

"Nari!" came a cry from the bigger man as blood stained his frayed clothing.

"Sorry, Saneaki!" came the apology from 'Nari'. The captain saw the albino return his attention to him, Renji.

"Hado #54: Haien!"

Renji swung Zabimaru, deflecting a blast of vivid purple flame. Clouds of smoke dissipated quickly, revealing the albino in question to have been the one to have fired the spell.

_So, he knows his share of kido...well, I know some kido, too._

And while Renji may not be good enough at it to safely throw out hado spells beyond the forties and fifties, it didn't mean his kido was weak. He had plenty of spiritual energy to funnel into kido spells. The problem was having precise enough control over it for his spells to not backfire. And, well, he knew uses for even that.

From what he had judged so far, both of them relied primarily on attacking with strong hits. The bigger man focused on evading attacks when thrown, but even so, still needed to stay relatively still, or at least in one place, to accurately throw his mace, and his balance was critical to that. The other one had kido at his disposal, but his main focus was getting in close and dealing punches and kicks. That much was a bad match--anyone who knew Renji knew he'd learned from Ikkaku, and he was one of the best hand-to-hand masters the Seireitei had. This was a battle of endurance--these two were fast, and their teamwork was good, but as soon as their control of the fight slipped, he'd be able to win.

In fact, Renji could see a method for beating these two simultaneously. Now was his chance to prove that his promotion to captaincy hadn't been a mistake.


	16. Flashback 04

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains references to heavy drug use and underage prostitution. These are not cast in a positive light, and if you would prefer to avoid those topics, please skip this chapter. Also--this chapter is very, **very** long, three times my usual length and almost twice my previous best.

_I've never had it easy. And, well, you could say I've always relied on others to get by._

_I've stopped being ashamed of that, recently. We all do, to some extent. Whether you're a thief, a soldier, an artisan, or a doctor, you've got to rely on somebody at some point. Someone to steal from, someone to buy your product. No one is truly self-sufficient, from the wealthiest businessman all the way down to the sleaziest whore._

_The latter was my specialty. I was born in District 76. The earliest thing I can remember is when I was a little girl, and my parents were arrested by soul reapers and taken to prison. I don't know what for. Banri was the one who took me in, even though he was only a few decades older than me. It's always been me and him. He's always looked after me._

_But in an environment that awful, you can't stay a kid forever. Banri did his best to provide for us, but he was a forty-year-old kid selling drugs. He couldn't even get a hold of his stock without messing around with thugs who would beat the crap out of him if he looked at them wrong, or didn't give them their cut of his profits. His dreams of being a kingpin drug lord were...laughably distant. His default physical state was bruised, and his ego matched the look. Even though I was younger than him, I understood what he was shouldering.  
_

_The details are hazy. Most of my life growing up has been spent in a drug-addled delirium in the waking hours and night terrors in the sleeping ones, so I can't give exact dates on most things. I can remember that he always kept me in the back of whatever shack we were renting and pretended I didn't exist whenever a man came around. I knew why. And I knew that if we didn't get more money, we were eventually going to get thrown out, and after that, it would be a matter of time before we were killed._

_I started...well, much earlier than I would have, if there'd been other options. At first, it was just sex for money. That didn't last long, of course, because the poverty out there was so extreme that nobody had a lot of money to go blowing on prostitutes. If someone wanted sex, they usually forced it on a nearby target. Then, it was sex for food. That worked a little better, but still wasn't taking a whole lot of pressure off of Banri and I. Then, it was just sex for a place to stay. I'd find whatever property had room to spare--houses, abandoned lodges, shacks on the side of the road with way too many people living in them, whore houses, the works--and find whichever man took a liking to me and was willing to lower his prices to something Banri could pay, if only the pretty girl he came in with offered him her time._

_At some point, Banri stopped trying to be a distributor and tried to be a manufacturer. You know, actually creating the drugs, or growing them, or however they got made. But that was far too slow a process. It just wasn't enough._

_It was years and years before we moved to District 74, then District 72, then District 71 after that. We were both exhausted by the time we were of an age to be dismissed as anything more than runts that would die before the week was out. Banri was a young man, and I was what, in the living world, they call a 'teenager'. Our situation hadn't improved that much, and we were out of money. To make things worse, I...had started sampling Banri's drugs. Had started taking drugs offered to me by the men I visited. I got addicted, badly. I started prostituting to pay for my latest fixes instead of helping Banri with the rent, which had started out as a secret even he didn't know, only to become a matter everyone knew, but no one talked about. _

_What was it, two hundred years? Longer? At some point, I was spiraling, and hadn't eaten in days. I had gone through things in my pursuit of the right crystals and the right syringes that I hated myself for. And our rent was gone. I...got mean. To Banri, that is. Withdrawal made me volatile, as it does to anyone else, and all it took was him looking at me to set me off. I guess that was because I could see in his eyes that he knew I'd spent our money. I'd deny accusations before they even left his lips. And all this time, the night terrors were getting worse. Bad reaction to the drugs, then a bad reaction to when I stopped using them.  
_

_But he never left me. Whenever I stayed gone too long, he always found me. Got in some pretty bad fights to get me home, too, even if home, as it had been then, was the softed patch of dirt we could find._

_One of the things I do remember clearly, even in the haze of my addicted years, was our first, and only, murder._

_Banri and I weren't innocent. We'd lost that a long, long time prior. But we still were far from the hardest people out there. Neither one of us had more than a few scuffles to our name. But Banri wasn't unprepared. He kept knives here and there, and even knew a couple poisons or two. So I noticed when he started carrying one on him each time he went out. I wondered nervously on occasion if he was watching for whenever I'd go for our rent money. But eventually, an evening came when he shoved me in a pocket space under a floorboard that one might generously call a basement, and told me not to come out, not to make a sound. I didn't hear anything for about twenty minutes, but I wasn't allowed to come out. Instead, Banri joined me down there, and said that we'd sleep under here tonight, and that I wasn't to leave the house for any reason. Anything I did, I was to let him know before I did it._

_I didn't know what to think. Had someone come around that scared Banri that badly? Was he undergoing some sort of dealings that he didn't want me to see, or see evidence of? Was he trying to punish me for some wrongdoing I hadn't been good enough at hiding? Or possibly any combination of the three?_

_But eventually the day came. Banri was staking out some house, and he wanted to wait until someone had left. Someone that Banri really, really didn't want to meet. It was...easier than it should've been. These guys had enough sense to not shout about the money they'd stolen, but not enough sense to not blow it. We came around selling drugs, and naturally, Banri made sure it was the right type of crystal to keep you tripping out of your mind and way too indisposed to stop a theft. About an hour into their trips, we snuck into the home. It was me who found the cash. I had grown used to looking for men's money when they 'forgot' to pay me and fell asleep. But just when I had found the money, a man grabbed me from behind, and lifted me up in the air. I'd been caught by someone--a big, scary-looking man. But before I could scream or hit him, his throat opened up--Banri had gotten behind him with the knife. The man dropped me, and I hit the ground and my knees buckled. His...his opened throat, the jugular, it...sprayed me, and I covered my mouth with my hand. Then I stuck my hand in my mouth and bit down hard, just to keep from screaming. Banri checked the bag to make sure it was what we wanted.  
_

_It wasn't quite enough to take my mind off of what had just happened, but if anything could have come close, it was just how much kan was contained in that bag. Banri sealed the bag again and started chanting something. I had never seen him use kido before, or even indicate that he could. He used a spell that caused all of the men in the house, who were starting to freak out about what they probably thought was a hallucination, or at least we hoped so, to lock their arms behind their back. While they struggled, we ran.  
_

_And we ran, and we ran, and we ran._

_It must have been days that we ran. There aren't any carriages or rickshaws that far out in the Rukon. It sure would've made things easier. We were too malnourished to make it very far without collapsing, especially with that heavy bag full of metal coins. We avoided anything even resembling a street, and stuck to the woods. I remember him coming up with a pretty clever idea whenever we did have to sleep and couldn't chance hiding out in shacks: he'd use a kido spell, Tzuzu-something, as I called it then, to run an electric current through the coins. The cloth sack wouldn't conduct the current, so it only shocked someone who tried to reach in and take it. He taught it to me, too, the Tsuzuri Raiden spell, so that I could keep watch while he slept without fear of anyone taking the coins...at least not without a fight. _

_Eventually, we made it past District 59, where the poverty slope leveled out just a little bit, or was at least a damn sight nicer than what we were used to. Banri still didn't feel quite safe, so we kept going to District 55, still remaining out of sight. The only reason we didn't go further was because the populace was starting to become harder to avoid, as there were less wooded areas, and because we were both so hungry that we couldn't make our bodies move much more. _

_We pulled a scam. We'd noticed there were actually businesses here, sparse though they were, so Banri told me to wait while he staked out an inn. At night, we scaled the back wall, into one of the empty rooms, and brought the money in by ferrying coins into the room bit by bit in Banri's folded-up jacket, lowering it on a rope he made from the unoccupied room's bedsheet. Man, I remember that taking a long time. He made some joke about the weight of wealth. That night, he slashed the pillows open, pulled out all the stuffing, and slid it back in bit by bit so that none of the coins we put inside them jangled against each other and made noise. We hid the rest under the bed. _

_The next morning, I crept out the window and down to the street below, going to wash off my face and hair. I had Banri's jacket on, and a few of the kan in the pockets, not enough to make me suspicious. My job was to walk in at a certain time and, after a customer had come down to complain of the tenants one floor above making a racket (actually Banri stomping on the floors of the unoccupied room), make my request. The innkeeper would remark that there was no one staying in that room, at which time I'd helpfully pipe up with "Oh, so you have a room free? I'll take it, if so." I got handed the key, and I handed over enough kan to make the lady's eyes bulge out, and asked if that was going to be enough to cover breakfast and some extra pillows. I got the room key and went up, the lady calling to me to just come down in ten minutes for coffee and some bread and soup._

_That solved our hunger problem, and eventually Banri had enough strength to dig holes. We pulled the stuffing out of the new pillows and laced those with coins, too, and what we couldn't fit inside the pillows, he dug ditches for in the bamboo forest behind the inn. There were four ditches dug, each containing a cut of the cash, and we kept the rest in our room. We were still loaded down, just with that fifth, maybe sixth of the cash, that we'd never have to worry about money again._

_Bit by bit, the fear drained away. That little hotel became our home. We were able to afford anything we needed, anything we wanted. So long as we spent inconspicuously, we'd never have to worry. Never have to go hungry. I'd never have to sell myself again, and Banri could forget that knife of his in the desk drawer that haunted him so, although I had no such luck.  
_

_The years slipped by, and we were, for a time, happy. We could laugh, and eat our fill, and get medicine when we were sick. But little by little, the decadence started to creep in. We started paying for things we could've done without, like beers...and prostitutes...and drugs._

_I should've known better, to be honest. The incident where we'd stolen this amount of money could've scared me off of it forever. But I fell back in, convinced I didn't have to be ruled by it this time. Only this time, it was worse. I didn't have Banri to be the level-headed anchor anymore, because in addition to starting his own drug trade back up, more successful than ever, he'd started sampling, too. We got involved in the trade deeply, very deeply. We had enough cash to run the good stuff out of the hotel like proper drug lords, and for a while that was what we did, inbetween going on trips with many of the wrong crowd. The rest is a tale anyone could probably see coming..._

_We didn't stay rich, needless to say. But, it wasn't because we blew through all of our cash, although we definitely could've done that much given more time. No, we left because one day, my night terrors showed up at the door.  
_

_I had been in a funk all morning, coming down from my shoot-up. They had those now, the syringes that you injected yourself with. I was waiting on Banri to bring breakfast up, but he was taking way too long, so I left the hotel room to go get it myself and bitch him out...and this man was just standing there, in the hallway. A huge man, absolutely gargantuan, he must have been seven feet tall. I didn't know his face, but I did know that sword._

_A blade nearly as long as he was tall, with an edge so chipped and jagged from use that it bore wicked teeth. He was just carrying it over his shoulder, like it was the most normal thing in the world, as he strode down the hall to his room. I had seen that sword dozens--no, hundreds of times throughout the years, always in my dreams, unable to forget it._

_I ran down to the breakfast area looking for Banri, and I found him there, looking as white in the face as I probably was. I took far too long to understand, and he came to his senses before I did. He grabbed me by the hand and dragged me back up to our room, and he emptied the rest of the bag of kan under our bed into his jacket pockets, and grabbed his knife from the bedside drawer. I wanted to think I'd just hallucinated that sword, but even in my drug-addled daze, I knew better. Banri fled with me, without bothering to go back for the rest of the money, and he hired a drawn carriage for us and told the driver to take us "as far north as you can get us."  
_

_Banri knew. He recognized that sword, too. So he knew that my night terrors were real, and now that I knew that... Oh, god...all of that was real..._

_I felt a sensation, in that carriage, as my memories came flooding back. I felt that terrible feeling, the feeling of breath at the back of my neck, the feeling that I'd just been run through with a blade. My memory became too vivid, and I knew I'd die again. I leaned out of the carriage and vomited. Then I rolled out of the vehicle, picked myself up, and started running. I didn't care about Banri calling my name. I had to run, and keep running, because I was sure that if I didn't, I would die. That steel would cut me, my blood would flow, and I'd be back in that hell again..._

_I was ashamed of how long I stayed gone, running around in the woods like a crazed woman. But between the drugs still in my system fueling bad things in my brain, and the sudden rush of returning memories, I was afraid anything I saw coming out of the darkness was coming to kill me. Eventually, I found Banri again, and he took me into a new hotel. When I had calmed down some, enough to talk about what I'd been feeling, he took out his knife and pressed it to my hands, only promising that it never be used on myself. If I was scared, and this could make me feel more secure, he was fine letting me have it, he'd said. He knew a few spells, so he could defend himself without it, and besides, he could always go get another. I looked down at the blade, and it was the same silver that had been used to engrave a memory in our heads. Really, it was what had plunged us into this mess. I couldn't feel much towards it but animosity. But he was right--I did feel a little more secure, just a little bit, with a blade under my pillow.  
_

_We were too scared to go back for the money. We were more than willing to wallow in alcohol, opioids, and every mind-altering substance under the sun, get in fights and get beaten half to death every other night over going back to where that man was. I became a prostitute again to make ends meet. We both kept meddling around the wrong sort of people and refusing to get help for ourselves. And after the slaughter just a few years after the turn of the century, where money became even tighter than before, we nearly starved several times, because every thought in our brain was going towards more, more, more. I don't know what it was, for Banri. But by now, I was so used to being on drugs to quell my nightmares and keep from becoming a nervous wreck that I was unwilling to even try going without them._

_Recovery did come up, every once in a while, but we both knew it was a pipe dream. There was no system in place to help people like us. At least in the Seireitei, if you got a little too in deep with the opioids, they could arrange for you to 'visit a cousin' for a while to detox and get back on the straight and narrow. Eventually, I suggested Banri try and get a job apprenticing for a doctor. He knew plants, right? He'd been growing plants, not to mention calculating dosages and examining materials, for a long time as a dealer. Surely he could find someone willing to take him on?_

_I didn't hear about him signing on under any doctor, but eventually, he did disappear for a about a week. That much alone scared me. It wasn't like we weren't used to being apart, but I relied on him so heavily that I wasn't sure how to function without him to handle food and housing, one of which we were low on and the other of which we were about to lose entirely. He couldn't have picked a worse time, and I admit I became something of a nervous wreck. And, well, when I'm nervous, I use. I blew through his whole stash, and then bought more, and more... I don't know where he went, but when he came back, he said he had good news: someone was willing to take us in. We'd have food, and shelter, but we'd have to travel, and it would take what money we had left to get where we were going.  
_

_Well, that caused our first real fight. Oh, we'd fought plenty of times, our addictions had never made us pleasant people. But Banri usually didn't have too much energy for arguing with me, and usually either took what I said lying down or just left. Not this time. We yelled, we screamed at each other, we hit and kicked each other. I wanted to stay here, and he wanted to leave. We both knew the real problem, which was that I'd already spent all of the money we would've needed to leave and shot up with it. _

_I cried myself to sleep that night, after yelling at him that I wouldn't have used up the money if he'd told me we were going to need it, and he'd responded that he hadn't known until he was on his way home, and that I couldn't even be trusted to not blow every bit of cash we had over just a few days alone._

_I was the one to leave for a few days afterward. I was spiraling and hating myself and I wanted him to trust me, so I decided I'd get that money back any way that I could. I went back to the dealer and begged for the money back, and yeah, he had it, but what was I going to do? Vomit up all the drugs I'd already bought from him and return them? No, if I wanted money from him, I had to earn it the old fashioned way. The messy way, with him, and a few of his buddies..._

_..._

_...I didn't need saving. _

_It wasn't like I wasn't prepared. Like I'd be doing anything I hadn't done before. And yeah, maybe it was a risky thing to agree to with a guy like that...but he didn't have to bust in and rescue me like that. I was just making up for my mistake. Just getting the money back. That ass, he...he always had to save me._

_He dragged me out of there, and told me that it wasn't worth all of that. We'd get the money back somehow, and he'd see to it that this time, we got where we needed to be. _

_And it took a month, but we did. We saved up the money, and made the trip, moving further north, towards the center of Soul Society: Seireitei. We weren't actually going that far, of course, but the location we arrived at was a house overseen by someone called Junzo Kaneda. The name didn't ring familiar to me. He turned out to be a tall, lean guy with a white coat too big for him, with dark grey hair and warm eyes. I remember thinking he was one of the cutest men I'd ever seen. It turned out, he'd set the place up specifically for us, and had been wondering why we were late. _

_Doctor Junzo--actually, it was Nurse Junzo, because he was still in training--turned out to be a genius...and a very kind man. _

_He had plenty of medicines, tested and experimental, for assisting us through getting clean and staying clean. He'd let us know whenever something carried a risk, or whenever he thought one way was safer than another. He was able to give us medicines that rejuvenated our bodies, and medicines that made all sorts of drugs we had histories with repulsive to our senses, or just killed our cravings outright. He kept us well-fed, better fed than we'd ever been before, and...and he didn't ask for anything in exchange. He did it just because he could help us by doing it.  
_

_I didn't have a perfect record--I relapsed a few times. But no one ever got angry with me. Junzo didn't even give me the disappointed routine when he found out it had happened, he just let me know that I could try again, and it wasn't like anyone was keeping score. The only thing he asked was that, if I did relapse, I was honest about it, so he could adjust my treatments and not accidentally hurt me with improper medication. He really made me feel like I wasn't a fuck-up. He made me feel like, since he thought I could do it, I could. I wanted to ask Banri where he'd found a guy like this, and what he'd done to convince him to take us in, but I didn't see him often. Banri wasn't as easy to break--he had bad reactions to a few of the medicines. Yeah, no one was keeping score, but I didn't need a tally to know that he'd relapsed a few more times than I had. That's why we eventually were put in separate houses, to keep the temptation from spilling back over towards me._

_It took months, but it happened. I was told that I was considered clean enough to be on my own, and that I could go my own way--but that I could still stay here if I thought I needed to, of course. Since I wanted to see Banri finish like I had, I stayed. I'd visit him often, so long as it wasn't considered a risk to my recovery, and we'd talk about what we wanted to do, what jobs we wanted to have, all the things we could do now that we were in a position to do them. Banri humored me often enough.  
_

_It was another month after that, though, before he asked me a weird question. "Do you trust Junzo?" he'd asked me. I'd stopped short in my rambling about how much healthier I felt. Did I trust Junzo? Of course I did. Why on earth wouldn't I? I told him that was a weird question to ask. After all, it was thanks to Banri that we'd come to be under his care. He couldn't give me a straight answer on why he had his doubts, and he admitted that Junzo was just about as good-natured as they came, unless he was a really good actor. He dropped the subject for a while, but only two weeks later, when it was almost time for him to be declared clean enough to leave, he said he wanted to see where the nurse was going at night._

_I furrowed my brow and asked Banri where he thought Junzo was going that wasn't his home. He mentioned that Junzo was living in the same recovery house I was, and that he was apparently going out on trips to get medicines, but why that necessitated bringing a crossbow, he wasn't sure. According to him, there were all sorts of illicit things that medical professionals could get up to, and it was just better that we know, if it turned out our blood samples were being used to develop brain-eating viruses or something. Not to mention, he knew something I didn't. Junzo's last name, Kaneda, was the name of a notoriously rich family from the Seireitei, which made it weird that he'd be out here, helping out peasants. That felt bizarre to me. I was sure he just had a case of mistaken identity. But I told him I was up for a little sneaking out, but that I wanted him to finish his treatment first. He agreed to that much.  
_

_So when the time came, he and I put on our coats, with my knife in my pocket, and trailed a safe distance behind the cute nurse while he strode out of the house he'd arranged for me to stay in. It was chilly, but that didn't seem to bother him. I could definitely see why Banri had pegged something as off about this. Sure enough, there was that crossbow he'd mentioned, and Junzo was wielding it with a very practiced grip. I tried not to focus on how it made his arms stand out. For some reason, Banri was sweating next to me, despite the cold. The distance we trailed him by stayed lengthy, given that we didn't want to end up stuck by bolts, but he was less than easy to follow when he was out of his brightly-colored nurse scrubs._

_Eventually, we realized that he was meeting up with someone. In contrast to Junzo, who radiated a warm friendliness, I got a bad feeling just looking at this dude. He seemed to blend into the darkness, except for his bright eyes peering out. Our secrecy didn't last long. Bright-eyes peered right at us, and my nervousness shot through the roof, along with a healthy side of panic. Junzo turned on his heel, and welcomed us, revealing that he knew we'd been following him the whole time. As it turned out, he wasn't the least bit mad, and in fact wanted us to walk forward.  
_

_"This does concern you. As a matter of fact, it's you we were meeting about."_

_The scary man walked up behind him, and I saw that he had a sword in each hand, and I was sure he was either going to try to kill us, or try to kill Junzo. But Junzo introduced him as Kazuo, and it turns out, he really was here to get medicine to Junzo. Our nurse pointed a ways into the woods, where we could see a rickshaw full of chemical jars and tools in kits. The swords were for us. He explained that Kazuo was stirring up a rebellion against the Seireitei._

_This news shocked us. Seireitei was...what even was Seireitei? It was as far away as the sky is from the earth, like an idea to us. There was nothing there but rich people eating gourmet food and drinking hundred-year-old sake, right? But he kept explaining further. The recovery home we were staying in wasn't sanctioned, it was actually set up specifically on Junzo's request by his brother and some local Rukon carpenters. Every single substance that he'd used to treat us was either stolen, or personally crafted by him from stolen materials, which was where Kazuo came in. The reason medicine, let alone drug recovery assistance, is so terrible in the Rukongai is because the nobility there have monopolies on drug trade and crush anything that threatens it. Since people that live in Seireitei can leave any time, but people outside Seireitei can't go in, nothing too helpful is allowed to exist out here. That was before, as Kazuo helpfully added, one factored in that there was simply such a quantity of money in the Seireitei that everyone in the Rukon could be fed on it without anyone having to go through any discomfort._

_"If there weren't heavy regulations--overseen by that mad science director in the Twelfth--on what you can transport and why he can't have it, we'd have more than fourteen residents in the recovery home I had built."_

_Well, that explained my confusion on why he'd want to rebel, but it didn't explain anything about why he wanted our help. What were we going to do?_

_Kazuo explained that there was a serious shortage of people in the Rukongai who both could fight, and would, not to mention the serious power difference between the Rukon's strongest thugs and the Gotei 13's weakest foot soldiers. He was willing to steal zanpakuto, which made up the bulk of the difference between Seireitei's military and his own forces, to close the gap. But for now, he was taking anyone who was willing to give it a shot, and he and some friends would be able to train us._

_Junzo assured us that we could refuse if we weren't interested, and that our health wouldn't suffer for it--we'd still have housing and food, and nothing would change. Though, Kazuo added after that if we told anyone of the rebellion besides people who already knew, we'd be dead before we finished speaking. I took him seriously when he said it. And then, we were being offered two swords, a zanpakuto each._

_Junzo was a kind man, and I was sure that he wasn't lying to us, but Banri was the first to speak, and flatly said we didn't want to be involved. I quietly agreed, and said that I'd prefer to not have to fight. Junzo just nodded, and Kazuo sighed, but we were sent back to the recovery houses, and Junzo said he'd be a while, since he had to tow that rickshaw. We went on ahead, and Banri and I separated when it was time to go to our different houses. But, I didn't go up to my room. I doubled back, and waited at the front entrance to spot Junzo coming in with his materials. When he came by, I asked to talk with him, and he obliged me, though I had to wait for him to unload all of his materials first.  
_

_I told Junzo that I actually did want to fight. That surprised him; he told me that I hadn't seemed like a very strongly-willed person. I let him know, though, that even though I had nothing I was good at, I was willing to try being a good fighter. I was tired of relying on others, tired of always being the one helped out, the one saved. If there was a chance for me to do something to help someone else, I was willing to take it. And I wanted to make it up to Banri for always being the one he had to look out for. If this rebellion worked, then resources would be far more plentiful, and he wouldn't have such a hard time with relapsing, right? Not to mention all of the people who hadn't been as fortunate as I was. _ _Junzo smiled, and even though I was pretty sure he was younger than me, it felt like I was looking at a responsible person, ahead of me in life. He told me he'd contact Kazuo and that he'd have a weapon ready for me tomorrow morning._

_It was early when I was woken up by a tapping on my door, and one of the other recovering residents who tended to be an early riser let me know that Junzo was down in the lobby, and wanted to see me. I went down, and there he was, a katana in a sheath awaiting me. I wanted to ask him some questions before he made me part of his rebellion, and he let me do so. First, I wanted to know what the real might of the Seireitei was--what sort of fight was I looking at? He got a grave look on his face as he told me that the military might of Seireitei was incredible, and that a person like me would expire just from breathing the same air as one of their lieutenants. I gulped, but it didn't shake my convictions. I'll just have to train really hard, I said. After that, I wanted to know if it was true that he was from a rich noble family himself, and he nodded. Why then, I asked, would he spend his time helping people like us, let alone trying to make waves in the system of the wealthy? He told me, with a very serious look on his face, but a very quiet voice, that he had an intimate knowledge of the desperation felt by the Rukongai. If it had been anyone else saying that, I'd have called him a liar...but I felt like if anyone could say that honestly, it was him. I was ready to hold a weapon.  
_

_He held it out to me, and I took the knife out of my back pocket. When he passed me the sword, I passed him the knife, and asked him to keep it for me. This, I'd said, was something given to me by Banri to help me feel safe. Now that I'd be wielding a sword, I wouldn't need it. Not to mention that...if I was slain in combat, and I couldn't be recovered, Junzo would be able to give this back to Banri in my stead.  
_

_And from then on, I trained. Once I demonstrated that I could wield a sword, and once my body was healed enough from the drugs that my true capacity for spiritual energy started to show itself, I was one of the few entrusted with a zanpakuto stolen by Kazuo. It took me a few years, but I unleashed my potential through it. It was a weapon called Soyokaze, the glimmer of a knife blade floating on the wind. Junzo made sure to tell me he was proud of me, when I realized what it did, what its special power was._

_I eventually got the chance to use it. I was so scared, but for the first time, I had saved Banri, instead of the other way around. And a lot of other people, as it happened. By this time, he'd become an apprentice pharmacist himself, and his know-how when it came to plants and chemicals was workout fairly well for him. It worked out even better when he decided to join the rebellion, too._

_The words 'auxiliary commander' don't mean much to me. There aren't really formal positions of leadership within the rebellion. It's about fighting who you can fight. The largest amount of citizens of the Rukon that join the rebellion are there to handle the foot soldiers, and prove that the Seireitei's numbers mean nothing, that even the weakest of us can pose a threat. I would've been fine doing only that much. We're only proving a point, after all. It means much more to me in that sense; Banri still directs most of what he and I do, but I can fight with him now. We don't have to run away. I can defend him just as well as he can defend me--maybe better, actually. _

_And I'm still scared. I know more now than I did before. But with kind men like Banri and Junzo backing me, I...have the power to do even things that I'd have been too scared to do before. There's nothing personal in this, not anymore. Revenge is beyond me. It's not about fighting a big monster, not for me--it's about fighting so that I can live life the way I've always wanted to, without fear and worry. Junzo's a full-on doctor now, and he's been working on something that can fix even my night terrors. _

_I'll repay them by fighting by their side._

* * *

_We live in a world of nightmares._

_In the outer Rukon, your day to day life will be measured only by how long you put in your all to preserve it. The slums out here are hostile on a good day; whatever you have, be it money, food, clothes on your back, or otherwise, will be taken from you by the first person who wants it from you. Sickness runs rampant with no one able to cure it, rape is treated as an everpresent danger, and drug abuse is so common that you'd be harder-pressed to find someone who'd never used. The only people with any power at all are the hardest of thugs that can control people with fear, and the slickest of drug lords that can control others through addiction. Oftentimes, those were the same people._

_I aimed to be one of them. Everyone knows dealers are the hardest people out there, and some of the only ones that manage to handle money long enough to do anything with it. You might be a hard bastard, and in the spirals of addiction, even the most unseeming individual will beat, cheat, thieve, and kill for their next hit, but everyone knows you do not piss off your dealer. Hell, when it comes to how far you'll go to keep up a steady line of your addiction of choice, you'll debase yourself as far as you need to._

_I admit, I was a slimy kid. Sandwiched between fear that I was convinced I could alleviate by being among those longcoated, knife-hiding bastards with the pills, and desire for that sick imitation of power and respect that surrounded them, and it was the only career option I'd have looked at even if there were others._

_But the Rukon hides more horrors than a collection of thousands of people who are driven to desperation because they can't make ends meet. If it were just that...well, it'd still be hell. But there's demons out here, too. The type that create such a horror that they escape the slums' legends and move closer to the center. _

_He didn't have a name. They called him the Devil Child, the Slaughter, and the Beast. Less a man than an animal, or a force of nature. A thing that enjoyed killing simply to sate boredom, which would slaughter everything in sight and chase down fleeing victims. An anonymous, wild, vicious monster that left mountains made of corpses. An entity so monstrously powerful that there just was no hope of fighting back, nor any of escaping. All blood around him was blood to be spilled. _

_Presumably because he left so few eyewitnesses, there weren't many details to this legend, which created a lot of skeptics. There were no reports of this hurricane of senseless violence speaking, or eating, or stopping to do anything but swing a blade, there wasn't any clear consensus on what it looked like besides 'childlike', and no one past a certain age remembered hearing about it. So for obvious reasons, a few 'badass' individuals considered the legend beneath them. That much can only be described as incredibly dumb._

_I was unlucky enough to be in the area, trying to sell my very first batch of 'the real shit' when this...demon...was on one of his rampages. _

_It was...unreal. There was so much blood. He was a flash here and there, moving far too quickly to keep track of, but you could glimpse him when he stopped to make a cut. It really was just a little kid. But with this...look on him. Feral. Not even that, it was glee. He prioritized the bigger, stronger men in the village, especially those that had weapons. They would rush him, and he'd carve them all up, and once they fell, he looked upset that they'd fallen so quickly. People were fleeing, and he ran them down. It took me so long to get up and move, even with blood splashing onto me and dirt and mud covering the parts it didn't hit. I could barely breathe, could barely manage to get up onto a knee. The feeling of being around him...it wasn't just like being suffocated. There was so much energy in the air, so much spiritual pressure, and all of it laced with killing intent. Murder. You could feel into his mind from the pressure he radiated. That was the scariest part. It was there, in the crushing pressure field. Joy at the crossing of blades and the flying of gore, boredom in how little time it took to win, and apathy for all else. _

_Just being in his vicinity felt like being pinned to the ground by a dozen swords. A raw feeling. Trying to stagger to my feet and move, just fucking move..._

_I met Miya that evening. _

_She was just a little girl. Soaked in blood from head to toe, kneeling on the ground, surrounded by bodies. Too weak to move, and ignored by the Beast. A group of soldiers was coming in from the opposite end of the road through the village, and I knew they'd die, but I grabbed her by the arm and ran. It would be our only chance. If he slaughtered everything in the area until only we were left, it would only mean we would get added to the mountain of corpses. I took her and staggered away, bit by bit, picking up the pace as I slowly slipped out from under his crushing pressure field. _

_Woods and houses surrounded us. This little orphaned daughter with eyes wide from shell shock didn't make any movements or sounds while I ran. Eventually, the yells of 'battle' in the background stopped, and I knew we didn't have much time. He'd go looking again, looking for anything living to sate his boredom, and if he saw us, running would only make it worse. So I ducked into a shack mostly hidden by trees, and slammed the door behind me, setting the little girl down. _

_But, she didn't stay quiet. She'd been shaken out of her frozen state, I guess, and I saw her looking down at herself. I saw it in her eyes, that the horror of what had just happened was catching up with her. And she didn't just start to cry, she started to scream. I wouldn't have blamed her, except that she was going to get us both killed._

_My first thought was to knock her unconscious, and...well, I tried, and it didn't work out that way. I was a puny little runt of a kid who didn't have that many years on her, and I wasn't strong enough to knock her out. I tried covering her mouth, but we were both slippery from all of the blood covering us and she struggled, so that didn't work either. Her mind was breaking, and if she didn't shut up, her body was going to be the next thing to go, not to mention mine. So I did the only thing left to me. I reached into my jacket pockets, and pulled out what I had. I was panicking, and wasn't parsing them well, but I found one of the fearsome little wads of powder in a bag that I'd ever carried. Shit's supposed to knock you out, and then send you on the trip of a lifetime. I grabbed a handful of powder out of the bag and held it over her nose and mouth until her eyes rolled up into the back of her head. Then I pulled her behind some furniture and hid us there.  
_

_It wasn't much later that I felt that crushing weight, that feeling of blades stabbing through my skin, coming closer. I put my hands over her mouth and nose again and held my breath, and she started the tremble. I was so terrified that he was going to come into the house where we were hiding, that he was going to pull the shelf aside, that he was going to swing that enormous blade down on us. But it passed. Fucking god, it passed, and it left..._

_After a while, the girl started to spasm. I was still too scared to do much but watch, but I worried that I'd overdosed her, or poisoned her. Her eyes would flutter, but she wasn't seeing me when I hovered over her. She would make noises here and there, and passed in and out of consciousness, would swat at invisible things in the air, start to shudder and feel along the wall. She would wake up and scream, shriek her head off, and I wondered just what it was she was seeing, hearing, and if it could possibly be as bad as what she'd already experienced. I realized at about the halfway point of her symptoms that the half-assed lie I'd cooked up wasn't going to work. So when she passed into another bout of unconsciousness, I picked her up and crept out of the house. I was looking for a water source._

_Everything was deathly quiet, but the stench of dead and decay was awful. I thought every shadow was the Devil Child, come to run that seven-foot blade across my bones. A few times, a raven would croak, or a vulture fly past, and I'd start running. Passing out of the afflicted area where that monster had rampaged and into a quieter neighborhood, I eventually found what I was looking for: a stream, where I knelt just by the side of the water with her. I was counting on a good bit of confusion and, if I was lucky, amnesia by the time she woke up. When it looked like her hallucinations were gone and the rest of her symptoms were passing, a day had come and gone and it was nighttime again, which was lucky. It made things harder to see in the dark. When she stirred, I splashed some water on her face, and made her wake up. All I told her was that we were 'almost there', but that she had to cross this stream with me._

_She just nodded, and I could tell by her eyes she was dazed. It was so cold in that water, and it was deeper than I'd expected--it was up to my shoulders, and I had to guide her through it. There were a few points where she was up to her neck and one misstep could've sent her under. But we got to the other side, after I made sure to go at an angle so she spent as much time in the water as I could justify. The moving water was able to rinse out most of the blood, or at least from what I could see in the dark, and even though she was still all-round filthy and disgusting, it at least made sense now and I could blame it on the dip into the stream._

_Shivering, we got out, and I took her into the first abandoned house I found. I searched around for clothes that would fit a tiny girl her age, and we had to leave and try a few more houses before we found them. Eventually, she asked what was going on, and what had happened before she fell asleep. So I told her part of the truth--a bad man had come along and drugged her, and it had made her have hallucinations and nightmares, but that she was okay now. She nodded, so I knew I wasn't lucky enough for her mind to just blank out the bad parts. But now, at least, she could escape them, and she would believe everything that she had gone through in the last two days was simply a drug-induced nightmare, none of it real.  
_

_I asked her name, and she told me she was called Miya. I told her my name was Banri._

_"Banri, do you know where my parents went?"_

_My heart was thumping in my throat while I lied. I put on this affected sad face, hoping I came across as sympathetic instead of viscerally horrified. I spun a lie I'd been working on and resolved to use if she believed the first part of the story I told her: that her parents beat the bad man up, but they got in trouble for it, and were taken to a prison far away from here...but they'd be coming back for her someday. _

_Naturally, this made her cry. Hell, any kid told they got poisoned by some asshole and their parents had been taken away from them for taking issue with it would cry like that. But it was better than her knowing the truth, millions of times better. I knew I was a terrible person for what I'd done. But there was no way to un-ruin her life...or mine, for that matter. I just had to make the best of it and give her the easiest version of things, and maybe she'd be able to survive it._

_"Until they come back for you, I'll be here. Don't worry, I'll look out for you."_

_And we've been at each other's sides since._

_That both was, and wasn't, the last time I saw the Beast. Miya and I, growing up together in the Rukongai's outermost slums, had a lot to fear, but we passed into young adulthood without too much in the way of hellish nightmare scenarios like the one that had brought us together. I should suppose that somewhere out there, the Devil Child was growing up, too. The next time I saw him was a couple days before we stole the biggest amount of cash we'd ever see. When I'd first seen 'the kid' that slashed his way through everything moving, he'd been smaller than I was. Now, he looked like he was about two or three feet taller than I was. But there was no mistaking that blade, that length of metal with so many teeth waiting to slash my throat. I saw his face, though he didn't see mine. His hair was matted, and he had a few scars, but there was no mistaking the face even then, nor the eyes with the slight hint of manic gleam behind the calm._

_Flashbacks took over. Horrible images repeating themselves in my mind. I think I pissed myself on the way home. I immediately told Miya to get under the floor of the house we were squatting in, to stay there and not make a sound. I popped in and out, eavesdropping, and I confirmed a few things before I ended up hiding out with her. One: the Beast was walking around with other people, who weren't dying. Two: he had a name now: "Zaraki" and "Kenpachi". Three: he was still a killer, and this band of thugs calling themselves mercenaries were rallying around him. Four: the people he was wandering with were going to ambush someone and steal an enormous amount of gold.  
_

_To be honest, I wondered if the demon I knew was the type to possess men. I didn't suppose it mattered. That blade still bore blood you could see from a distance. I got so nervous, so scared, that I dipped into my drug stash just to make myself sleep. That was...a terrible mistake. I had my first taste of drugs, experienced brain-altering materials in my system. It hit me hard, especially when I'd been so careful not to partake before.  
_

_I was the stupidest person alive in the days that followed. Just as the highs kept the flashbacks at bay, they kept the fear away too, fear I should've respected. I should've just taken Miya and run. But I watched for him, waited for him to leave one day. I took a knife with me. I...guess I had some weird fantasy. Some sort of vivid idea in my head of getting revenge. Wondered if, in the event he came back to his hideout, I could slash an eye out. But truthfully, I just wanted that gold really, really badly. And I pulled off a real moronic plot to get it, but it...it worked._

_And then we had nowhere to go with it. We couldn't stay in the same area, but there was no transportation more sophisticated than your feet out here. We couldn't travel on the roads, or the first person who saw two kids carrying a big sack and running would beat us to a pulp and take it, at best, and just kill us for it at worst. So we just ran, and ran, and ran until we couldn't do it anymore. Somehow, maybe some divine being was smiling on us, we got in a position where we could feasibly rest, and relax, and actually spend the money, after we'd put an enormous effort into hiding it so that we didn't get our throats slit for it._

_And from there, the story is predictable. Not wanton waste, of course, but lack of regard for ourselves...I didn't put in the effort into watching out for Miya that I should have. I let the joys of access get to me, and started slipping into my own drug stash again. Heh. Miya had thought I'd never done it before. It was all downhill from there. My happiness, what little I found each day, started going down the drain. I knew better, could've avoided it, but I...just didn't. It was pathetic, and I was pathetic, and eventually it got to the point where I didn't know how to go about my day without pills, a shot, or both. It could've continued forever, until I finally killed myself, but then who would've showed up, except..._

_Yeah. Him. Again._

_All of a sudden I knew why I hadn't been careful. Why, after seeing an adult Slaughter, I hadn't immediately booked it in the other direction. What had been missing last time, what I could make perfect sense of even with my brain addled by drugs, was that weight, that crushing pressure. It was back. Far weaker than the last time I had felt it, yes, but it was there. And it was enough to get through to me. Even before I saw the blade, I felt it biting into my skin, tearing my muscles. I took Miya and left the hotel we'd been staying in for years at that point, just grabbed enough coin to make it far, far away. And Miya was clearly going through the same thing I was. We were both convinced he'd come back to kill us for stealing his money.  
_

_My lie fell apart right there in the carriage we were using to flee the scene. Miya ran away, and it was my responsibility to stop and look for her, even if it put me in danger. I think she was...a wreck, to say the least. She got so fearful of anything she thought could hurt her that for a while, she avoided any other people. I remember hearing people talk about her like a ghost they'd spotted in the woods. I eventually got her back and got her to calm down somewhat. I don't know if it was a smart thing to do, but I decided to hand her my knife when she had calmed down a bit. I was less worried that she'd hurt someone else with it than herself, so I made her promise not to ever do that. The way I rationalized it, she wouldn't need it, because we wouldn't get separated again. Because whatever or whoever she might need to cut, I'd cut first. But, that didn't last long.  
_

_The day came when I was wandering out on the streets, going through some serious withdrawal in my first actual attempt to quit. I didn't want to be around Miya in case I ended up being the sort of guy who turns into an ass under withdrawal, but I didn't mean to be gone as long as I was. I was walking through a small vendor street, trying to keep my head down and avoid people while I bought something to eat to get past my craving. By this point I was secretly hoping I'd come across a vendor selling ingredients I could use to make more powders, but I didn't. I did, however, stride past something that made me almost trip over my own feet._

_"...Kenpachi Zaraki's the new..."_

_I froze, sure I'd heard incorrectly. I ventured closer, and saw a gaggle of men having a discussion about some recent development, but I didn't hear anything else about the demon. I'm sure I looked ridiculous, a skinny, trembling man who looked like a pill bottle had coughed him up edging slowly closer to a vendor. A lot of these men looked tough, some of them seemed like they could break me in half with a glance. One of them didn't seem to be involved in the conversation at all, just listening off to the side, like I was--but he was perhaps the scariest-looking of the bunch. Big and well-built, with a metal arm and scarred skin. There was a nodachi sheathed at his waist. Eventually, he walked off. After a minute's hesitation, I decided to catch up to him and try to find out if he'd heard more than I had._

_"H...Hey! Hey!"_

_And he turned around, a hand on the hilt of his sword, and I skidded to a stop and gulped. It took me a few tries to murmur anything coherently, but eventually I got it out of me to ask what those guys were talking about. He said he didn't know, it was just some news he was listening in on. I asked if he'd heard anything about a name, feigning ignorance, stumbling over shit like 'Kechi Zapachi', and he corrected me. Yeah, I'd heard the right name: Kenpachi Zaraki. My throat went dry._

_"He's--he's not here, is he?!" Was I going to have to run back to our hideout and take Miya and run again? It seemed like that beast of a man and his wicked blade were following us._

_"No, he's not here. They were saying that he went and killed one of the Gotei 13's captains. So, per the rules, he's the new captain of that division."_

_That sounded barbaric, but at least it meant we were safe. Not just now, but for the foreseeable future, right? But I had doubts._

_"Do they...do they not know what he is? What he does?" I blurted out._

_The grey-haired man squinted at me, and took a couple steps closer, and I wanted to run, but I didn't._

_"I imagine not. But...you've got some information on this man?"_

_"He's not a man, he's a monster." The guy asked me to elaborate. So I went into detail about what went on two, maybe three centuries ago in the era of my youth--about what it was like dealing with such an inhuman force, what he left in his wake. I openly wondered if maybe there was more than one of the Slaughter, just habitating in different areas of the Rukon--and now, the Seireitei. Reizo, as he introduced himself, didn't think so. Turned out he was looking for information on Zaraki, and he wanted me to talk more about the places I'd met him at. Well, given my first experience with him, I was understandably not ready to hang around. But I eventually got to the details of how I'd escaped from him with gold. Reizo perked up when he heard that._

_"That gold, you've still got it?"_

_"No, I left it when he showed up at the inn."_

_"Do you think you could take me there? I'd like to see if it's still there. If you'll escort me, I'll make it worth your while."_

_He obviously had an interest in that much cash, but I wasn't ready to go back that deep in the Rukon, even if there really wasn't a chance of me seeing Zaraki again. I'd escaped towards the center, and life here was still shitty, but a lot less so than it was out there. When I first shook my head, Reizo peered closely at me, obviously looking me up and seeing what he thought he could tempt me with._

_"You look like you enjoy your choice drugs. You want drugs?"_

_I shook my head fiercely, backing away. "N-nah, nah, no drugs, I'm actually trying to...to quit..."_

_"Even better. You wanna quit? I can help you quit. I know a guy, he knows his way around medication."_

_That...was tempting._

_"C'mon, I'll get you some food while I'm at it."_

_So I went with him. It had to be right then, he said, or he would've let me go and prepare. I knew he was worried he'd been overheard, and that if we waited, someone might get there before we could. _

_It took three days for me to escort him out there, and that was probably my fault, not having made myself familiar with the areas while I was fleeing. After we got to District 55, it was a while before I was able to find the inn that I had used as a home and a base for so many years. I admit that I got excited, just a little. This dude, so obviously after the gold, was probably not going to let me have any of it, but the thought of being comfortably middle-class again for a little while was torturously sweet. But when we got out there, and I took him to the bamboo forest behind the inn, I found all four spots that I'd marked with cuts to certain bamboo shoots only I'd be looking for...or so I thought. We didn't even have to dig. Whoever had come after me and found the gold had dug up all four ditches and took every last kan in them, without even bothering to cover them back up. Who knows how long that gold had been gone? We'd never get it back._

_Reizo sighed when we saw the first one, but permitted me to go look through the rest and come back shaking my head. I thought he was going to leave me hanging on his promise, since he hadn't got what he'd come for, but he said he'd still agree to help me get clean, along with whatever friends needed help with it, too. He wrote down an address on a napkin he borrowed from the innkeeper, and told me to show up there in a month. I got ecstatic. Of course, since we hadn't found any gold and he'd have to use his, we were going to have to make the trip on our own. Not a problem--I'd been saving up from my drug deals._

_He escorted me back to District 39, and I got to thinking, hey, he wasn't so scary. He was actually pretty nice. And if he was going through with this, and not just pulling a month-long prank on me, he was a kind dude. Of course, then I got back to the hideout, and Miya had... _

_I regret being such a jackass to her. It just...it felt like something good was finally happening and she had dashed it before it could take off. I had to go and pull her out of some shack with a slimy dude, and I didn't have any materials left to make sales. We both put in double the amount of work, though, and ended up with just enough money to make the trip on time, without accounting for food or weather problems. But we got there._

_It was a beautiful place. Reizo, it turned out, was a talented welder, and while he was more into engineering than construction, he and a couple of friends had succeeded in making a functional recovery home. Miya and I had come alone, so they were even able to open up twelve other rooms to the first people that came for them. We met Junzo, and I could just about hear Miya's heart thumping out of her chest when she first saw him. That was kind of adorable._

_Recovery was...not as easy for me as it was for her. For having been a dealer up until the day I signed in, I was in a much stronger grip than I'd ever thought. And Junzo, he...for a guy so young, he was an amazing man. Gentle, but smart. I wondered for ages why he'd just help people like us, besides 'my brother told me to, and I thought it was a good idea'. He was younger than me, but he seemed so much more mature. I felt like he was...a decent guy? No, not just that. He radiated the kind of goodwill that made me envious, and then ashamed of my envy. He was a protective sort, the kind of goodhearted and reliable that I'd wanted to be for Miya, even though all I ever amounted to was a drug-addled slob that got us into trouble._

_I had to admit that on finding out his last name, I was a bit suspicious of him. It turned out to be for nothing, though the question it raised of Reizo's quest for gold remained, given that he should already have plenty. But the day came when, once Miya and I were both officially recovered, we got offered the chance to join a rebellion._

_I could remember thinking 'of course this didn't come without a catch', and being frightened at the very idea of fighting something that necessitated such a weighted word. If something was amoral enough that a sweet dude like Junzo felt he had to act, was it my business to confront it? No, I didn't think so. If something was so frightening that a guy like Reizo didn't want to fight it without help, was I really cut out for it? The fuck I was. I turned him down. _ _But Miya, though I'd thought she'd mimicked my decision, had secretly accepted._

_I only found that out many years later, when the recovery home I was now working at under Junzo as a junior pharmacist caught fire. The place was a lot more wood than metal, so it spread very quickly. I remember running down a hallway, trying not to breathe in the smoke, when a spinning...thing passed me by. It flew straight into the fire, and sort of...pulled it back. Held it at bay. Like yanking hair back on someone's head. It stopped the spread long enough for me to get past it, and I kept running, but I couldn't breathe..._

_The recovery home had expanded a lot since it was first built in the years I'd been studying pharmaceutical care. There were now a lot more than fourteen addicts living in the houses, and all of them were far more at risk. But thanks to Miya's zanpakuto sucking oxygen that was fueling the fire away from the residents' rooms, all of them were able to escape, me included. But when you've been doing drugs for years--especially if those include cigars and beer, and anything else capable of damaging your lungs, immune system, or both--then smoke inhalation becomes a much more deadly matter. But we were saved. Between Junzo and Yukimoto, which was the doctor who'd trained him, being on the scene to assist with healing and removing toxins, there was also Miya. The ability in her weapon, it was...miraculous. It used the power of the fire and turned killing chemicals into life-saving ones. She was the final piece needed, the one that made sure there were no casualties that night. _

_The fire was stopped in time, and we only lost part of the recovery home. The cause was ruled to be a malfunction in the gas-lit lamps. Reizo, who had been the biggest muscle in building the place, was devastated and felt responsible, though no one really blamed him--and any unpopularity he earned from that fact was more than made up for by him personally rebuilding the place, with electrical lighting used instead. _

_But this event made me realize that Miya was stronger than I'd ever given her credit for. She'd done something so great, and she was the only resident who had kept a clear head during an emergency, when she'd formerly been completely ruled by fear. I wondered how that had happened, and wondered if Junzo had anything to do with it. I...wanted a little bit of that for myself, to be honest. I wanted to grow like she had. And Junzo had already helped us both, so much..._

_I changed my mind. I wanted to join, I told him, hoping I wasn't too late. Junzo presented me with a zanpakuto right off the bat, and I started training with it. Ultimately, I didn't get something so graceful as Miya's Soyokaze, but I don't suppose anyone could expect that. The power housed in my sword was the power of the life I'd lived. According to Junzo, I could use it for harm, or help, and I would probably need both. No one rebel knew as much about mind- and body-altering substances as I did, though I was happy to help Junzo close the gap a bit. I eventually wanted to know why he was so concerned with my zanpakuto's powers.  
_

_I got the answer a year or two before the Quincy war that came down on Seireitei--and the mass culling that galvanized our forces. Junzo took me and Miya into a room containing Reizo and Kazuo, and told us a sensitive matter. The truth was, there were two people, two captains, that were of great concern to Junzo and Reizo. Their names were Mayuri Kurotsuchi and Kenpachi Zaraki._

_I went white when I thought that he might be asking us to take on Zaraki. Neither Miya nor I wanted anything to do with him again, not even for revenge. I knew that if we faced a man like that, we'd only be paralyzed with fear, if not his enormous spiritual pressure, and be killed. Reizo nodded. Zaraki, he said, was a responsibility that not many people in the rebellion wanted. We weren't the only ones who had seen our lives affected in horrible ways from the days of Zaraki's childhood, or perhaps beasthood was a better word. That was fine; he was willing to do the deed himself. He acted like it was just because it fell to him for lack of anyone else, but...I saw the fingers on his metal arm flex. Just a tiny twitch. _

_But, that left Kurotsuchi. Apparently, this was the 'mad science director' that Junzo had mentioned to us when discussing Seireitei. Junzo informed me quite explicitly that he was the only one capable of equaling Zaraki in violence, but he wasn't a fighter. He was a patient, methodical, absolutely sadistic monster--and also a better genius than Junzo himself. He came prepared for almost any situation and had work-arounds and contingencies for any instance in which he saw himself overpowered or outmaneuvered. Junzo was willing to take him on, but he figured he'd need help. That was where Miya and I came in._

_The more he talked about this guy, the more afraid I was. Mad science...sadism from someone who was supposed to help people. If he'd said that we alone had to do it, I would've said no. But Junzo wanted us to back him up in a fight. Apparently, our combination of powers would be perfect for countering his favored poison attacks. Miya said she was willing to give it a try, and, hey...I went where Miya went._

_Fortunately, things didn't pan out that way. Kurotsuchi was killed by one of his own underlings, shortly after the war, though by then the timing was poor enough that I felt like I'd missed out. I'd never wanted to kill someone in my life, never wanted to commit murder, never wanted to even point a blade at someone unless I had to...but what Kurotsuchi did, the night before the war started...all of those people, dead under his orders...I could've ripped him apart myself. It's almost sad. I lost the back-up villain to my story, the one I was actually willing to fight._

_It only made our job easier, in the long run...we can be grateful for that. _

_The more information came in from Kazuo about Seireitei, the more I became convinced I could offer my help. I could see plans, see strategies, and see the exact way to win against whatever came my way. And it didn't hurt that I was being trained by professionals. I tried holding Reizo's nodachi once, and son of a bitch that thing was heavy. No, wakizashis are more my style. Plus, it turns out I've got a fair bit of hand-to-hand proficiency, who'd have guessed?  
_

_Soon, it'll all be over. I've found something I'm good at, something I can make a proper career of. But this has to be done first. And Junzo helped me out, so I'm going to help him out, too. And, I've still gotta look out for Miya. So long as she's got me, she won't have to worry, right?_

_I...I think I'm ready._

* * *

Banri surveyed his opponent closely. The Visored was kneeling on a rooftop, panting heavily. It was a sorry coincidence that this had been the captain to respond to their trap. He knew from the history imparted on him by the rebel leaders that the Visored were as much victims of Seireitei as anyone else. Not to mention they'd had more than enough experiences with unwilling alterations to their minds and their bodies. But, this was the way the cookie crumbled.

_Man...I really wish Kurotsuchi were still around. Just so I didn't have to feel bad about this._

Then again, they said that murder changes men. It had certainly changed him on the only occasion he'd committed it. Maybe he wasn't cut out for brutal revenges. He readied his dispenser tube as Rojuro Otoribashi got back up. Looked like he was ready for round two.

_Once we've won, I'll detox him. Least I can do._

"You ready, Miya?"

"I'm ready, Banri."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Miya Azai** is one of two auxiliary commanders--equivalent to lieutenant position and strength--under rebellion leader Junzo Kaneda. Horrific trauma at an early age made her timid and dependent, and unsure of what she wanted. She has followed Banri all her life, largely due to him being the only one who had ever taken any real interest in her well-being after the deaths of her parents. She views Banri as a big brother figure and has a crush on her rebellion leader, Junzo. Despite making a remarkable recovery from her addiction in the past few decades, she is still not cut out for heavy combat and prefers distance fighting. Her zanpakuto's name is 微風 (_Soyokaze_, or “Zephyr”). It takes the form of a circular blade weapon best described as a wind-and-fire wheel without the teeth, being simply a crescent with a very sharp edge and a handle. Unlike a wind-and-fire wheel, however, its primary use is as a throwing weapon, hence it being likened to a chakram. Soyokaze contains the power of the wind, using this to alter its trajectories. Its true power, however, lies in its ability to heal: Soyokaze can pull pollutants out of whatever air comes into contact with it, and can convert it into a healing spray. The power of the fluids it creates are dependent on the strength of the irritants or toxins they were converted from, and how much of it there is. Hence, it not only provides a powerful counter to airborne hazards, it also synergizes extremely well with Banri's shikai, which can fuel its healing abilities at any time.
> 
> **Banri Ariyoshi** is one of two auxiliary commanders under Junzo Kaneda and the husband of Emi Inuzuka. Being quite a bit more savvy and learned than Miya is, he often knows details she doesn't and can make use of them quite well, but can be prone to panicking and second-guessing himself. He has a fairly good mind for medicine, which he took so long to realize as he used his gift to create and deal drugs, which was his initial dream of surviving the terrifying world of outer Rukongai. Though he views himself as a terrible person and a coward for the things he's done, he nonetheless is very devoted to Miya, and will go to extremes to protect her. His zanpakuto's name is ヤドクガエル (_Yadokugaeru_ or “Dart Frog”), a weapon explicitly for the creation, weaponization, and treatment of drugs. Its activation dissolves the blade into a spread of powerful hallucinogens, and the handle left behind transforms into a hollow tube used to blow spreads of powder or darts loaded with chemicals, with a pocket and slots made for dispensing pills, and even an injector on the bottom end. Unlike Junzo, his zanpakuto can create these unaided, meaning his is technically superior. Due to his knowledge of mind-altering substances and his ability to create fast-acting and truly devastating examples, he is a very dangerous rebel.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Banri and Miya are holdovers from back when I was intending to have Mayuri die in this fic. Inbetween the original draft and this being published, I got quite into Akon's character and plotted something up wherein he ends up kiling Mayuri, which I eventually decided to merge with this fic's events. Far too attached to their backstory and their powers, I decided not to replace them, but rather to see how they played with whatever members of the Gotei 13 weren't taken out by other rebels.


	17. Surprise Attacks

Renji eyed the metal ball and chain as he allowed a ball of fiery energy to grow in his hand._ I've got this_, he thought.

"Hado #31: Shakkaho!"

The fireball shot forward from his hand. As Renji had imagined he would, he tried to evade. All well and good, but Renji was already conjuring and firing another fireball--and another. The thing about having a giant flail attached to a chain, attached to a manacle on one's legs, was that it kind of limited mobility. Of course, he could use flash step...which was the reason for Renji firing erratically the way he was. He noted the albino, Nari, circling and watching him carefully. All he needed was...

_Success!_

Renji's fireballs had caused Saneaki to skid, with a large church wall blocking further evasion attempts. Left without other options, his latest fireball had been answered by the flail. It met the metal ball halfway to the target, exploding in a cloud of smoke. A decent defense, but Renji lifted Zabimaru over his head, preparing to launch the chainblade into his opponent while he was recovering his weapon.

_!!!_

His arm, however, was being restrained! Lifted back, with an arm pressed to his shoulder to keep him from yanking free. Nari was trying to keep him from attacking.

This all worked to Renji's advantage.

His strategy by all appearances had simply been to do the same thing they'd been trying with him--attacking when the other was busy recovering his distance weapon. He had long-since put a stop to that, not just in this very fight, but in general--and if Saneaki and Nari thought he would really stick to such a tactic, they were wrong. Having failed with punches and kicks, and kido as well, Renji knew from his own hakuda training and the habits of those who focused on it that the next step was trying to grapple him. He knew exactly how to respond and was already building a fireball in the hand that wasn't trying to throw Zabimaru.

Lousy at kido he may be, but he'd found out from his experience with Szayelapporo that he was a tough fighter in his own right, and that had only increased greatly since then. A kido backfire might have caused him some survivable damage back then, but by now it wasn't going to deal him serious harm so long as he wasn't trying spells too high a caliber. He imagined that couldn't be said for Nari, though, who seemed to have focused heavily on evading his attacks.

The small, brightly-glowing fireball that nonetheless smoked ominously was formed quite fast, and before the albino had time to notice and escape it. Renji, hardening his own pressure field, thrust his left palm backward towards the man holding his right arm, and allowed it to explode.

"_Aargh!_"

He got the outcome he was looking for, the explosion barely singing his own uniform, but causing the man holding him to stumble back, stunned and injured. Renji whirled, confirming that the burns on Nari were extensive, and grabbed _his_ arm. Using it as leverage, Renji landed a knee in the man's gut, a fist to his face, and finally swung the man in his entirety. Choosing the direction and the force he threw with carefully, the captain pulled the rebel over his shoulder and launched him a good distance, causing him to skid onto the ground.

He grinned. His final attack was ready to go.

The current arrangements of the fighters was a triangle, with all three opponents roughly an equal distance apart and forming its points. Saneaki had recovered, and Nari was still in the process of it. Renji saw the flail being swung, and sidestepped it easily. With both rebels having cast their attacks and failed, it was time.

"Huagh!"

He threw Zabimaru, launching the chain blade forward at Saneaki, with a bent to his left--or Saneaki's right. As he'd intended, the man threw himself to the side to avoid it. However, Renji curved the blade's trajectory before it flew beyond him, now aiming it at Nari.

"Lookout!"

Nari dodged too, but this was according to plan as well. His shikai curved again, coming back towards him now, and thanks to the very deliberate angles he'd launched and turned his weapon at, it now outlined the triangle he'd created--both other fighters were within a fence created by Zabimaru as it came back to him, the end blade being caught in his free hand. Now was the moment he could strike.

"_Higa Zekko!_"

In a flash of red light, the stretching threads that held the bladed segments of his shikai together vanished. Each blade glowed the same vivid red as they were levitated and empowered with his spirit energy, before they all turned inward and launched themselves towards the two men that had thrown themselves towards the center of the triangle. A fierce flash of light, several dozen splatters of blood, and two ringing cries later, and it was over. Rather than levitating back into place, the blade segments simply re-appeared atop the handle, re-forming his sword. Zabimaru was no longer bound by the same limits it formerly had been.

He surveyed the damage, both opponents in a heap on the ground. Were they truly defeated? As if to answer his question, he saw the two of them stirring, pulling themselves up, and Saneaki pulling on the chain to his weapon. No problem, he'd finish them off the right way.

"Shakkaho."

Both fighters were down with the count with a final fireball that hit them square, with its power held back enough to not kill them. Nari was left unconscious. Saneaki, coughing, could be seen lifting a hand, pulling on Nari's arm, and moving it towards the marking on his chest.

"Oh, no you don't!" Renji said, sheathing his now-sealed zanpakuto. "Bakudo #1: Sai!"

_!!!_

"_Aaaagh!_"

Renji felt a severe pain as four sharp points embedded themselves in his back. Thrown forward, he skidded into a half-kneel, palm pressed to the ground. As he looked up, he saw two green flashes as the rebels disappeared, his binding spell not having taken effect quickly enough.

_Who the hell...?_

* * *

Soi Fon peered around a corner. She seemed to have caught up with her target at last. Tall, broad, red hair, barefoot, marked arms, baggy clothes that included a ragged and torn shihakusho, wakizashi and nodachi on opposite sides of his waist...and a golden chain necklace resting on his neck. This was the man Omaeda had described. His back was turned to her, and he didn't seem to be aware of her presence yet as he strolled down the street.

She lunged, making no noise as she left her hiding place in a flash, bringing her sword out of its sheath and swiping for the back of the man's neck.

_Huh?_

Her target had vanished in a shower of golden sparks as she hit the ground. She checked her blade, and found blood there. A fake?

"Urgh!"

A foot had made contact with her, sending her skidding on three points from her position. It hadn't hurt, but she drew her zanpakuto in front of herself defensively anyway. The man who stood before her was identical to the one she seemed to have just dispelled. He was smiling underneath bright blue eyes.

"Identify yourself!" she commanded.

Something about this made her uncomfortable. She was ordinarily able to tell a fake from the real thing immediately, but the clone that had dissolved when she'd struck it a fatal blow had been not only solid, but was exhibiting a light spiritual pressure signature--identical to the one this guy was exhibiting now. Was he a fake, too? As she watched, he withdrew the nodachi at his waist.

“_Surpass Earth and Rival Heaven,_ _Akaib__ō__._”

The nodachi transformed in a flash of light into a long, red chang gùn that fit perfectly in his hand.

_Omaeda warned me that this man may be a treasonous soul reaper...he has shikai, and he wears the clothes, but I've never seen anyone whose appearance matches this in Seireitei. It's a shame we don't print division numbers on standard personnel uniforms. I'll just have to get a good idea of what area he defected from by how he fights._

"My name is Kosuke Hikaru." he answered, and his tone was oddly relaxed. "And you're Soi Fon, captain of the Second Division and the Onmitsukido."

A wave of crushing pressure enveloped the area. Soi Fon did not twitch nor move in any way, nor was she intimidated, despite the ground shaking.

"Kosuke Hikaru," she said calmly, "if you drop your weapon now and tell me what I want to know, I won't harm you."

"I mean, you kind of just moved to cut my head off, so I doubt that." he answered, readying his staff, "but I'm happy to answer a few questions anyway."

* * *

"_Prometheus!_" shouted the maestro.

In his dancers' hands was borne the gift of fire, shot in burning streaks towards the two offenders. They cried out in pain, and Rose attuned himself to their pressure fields to see how much more they would need. Their wounds were unsightly, yet beautifully inspiring and wrenching to his heart. And yet...that wasn't enough? No matter. He had more melodies in store.

His movements with his conducting baton changed, as did the moves his dancers performed. Once swaying to the passion of flame, they now danced fast, with harsh beats, erratic movements, shuddering, but with a rhythm to them. His opponents, the drug lord and the woman of the wind, flashed away, bouncing and skipping off of rooftops, but they could not escape. To hear his music was to be entranced by it. Once his song found one's ears, it found their heart, and once it found their heart, their life was his to command. The dancers moved with them, appearing wherever they went, encircling them at all times.

"_Chain Lightning!_" he called as the new song took off. Chains appeared between the limbs of his dancing troupe, binding them together, and as each dancer swung and strutted, arcs of electricity blasted between them across the circle they formed, violently shocking the enemies he had marked the hearts of. His vision frayed at the edges, as he felt a slight disconnect with his Dancers of Death. How odd...had he missed a few steps on that song? No matter. Flavor was best enjoyed in variety, and song as well. The two rebels were not yet dead, and so he'd be happy to treat them to a melody or two more.

"_Borealica!_" he called, and the song and dance changed again. "The bite of the wind! Appropriate, is it not?"

The tempo slowed down, but his opponents' repeated attempts to escape his dancers failed. They always surrounded their audience, tracking the heart they enraptured flawlessly. In this next melody, his troupe circulated a wind between them that rapidly cooled until it was freezing, before hurling blasts of ice from their frostbitten hands. The two invaders shrieked, their flesh and bone captivated in the sharp grip of ice.

_One more should do it_, he thought. He heard a rumble and looked up. The sky was clear overhead. Strange...he'd already ceased and moved on from his chosen sonata of thunder and lightning, had he not? But why else would he be hearing thunder...?

_"...and then he was using his justice sword, kicking ass and..."_

Rose swung around. That wasn't his enemy--that had been Love's voice. It was as clear as though it was right next to him, but then it had trailed off. What was going on? Love wasn't here, he was back in the world of the living...

So focused was he on the strange event, which he refused to think of as a hallucination, that he failed to notice a dart headed his way. It stuck in the beak of his mask as he turned around just in time. Obviously it had been sent from Banri, whom he could see holding a strange blowtube-like object to his lips. Rose calmly removed the dart from its embed, discarding it.

"That won't work. Now, for the closing song..."

Justice sword, hmm? That gave him an idea...

"..._Mesuhano Sanbika_." he declared. This would be the final act: the Scalpel Verse. A long, droning note played, followed by the booming choir and organ tones of horror and sacrifice. Ominous and dark notes began to play, piling on top of one another, and his Dancers of Death made the matching moves, sweeping motions with their arms, as the very sounds of the music itself would core the skin from his enemies' bones. The edges of his vision blared red. Had that happened, when he'd last used this song?

But something was wrong. The notes weren't right. At first they were just a smidge off, and his enemies could be seen bleeding as they were intended to, but the problem steeped...even as he conducted, knowing full-well the motions to create the tones...the sounds, they were breaking down! Entirely the wrong notes were blaring! He tried to adjust, tried to fix his motions, but it didn't work. The screams of his enemies, first mixed in beautifully with the opening notes, were fading as the song warbled and staggered its way into its first chorus. What was going on?! Things within his vision were starting, just so slightly, to warp, peel away...

_I've got to finish this quickly_, Rose thought.

He cut the song short, leaving the dancers still. Leaping up onto a higher rooftop, he peered down at the enemies. Banri and Miya were on their knees, nursing their wounds--much ash from burnt clothes mingling with spare icicles, all amidst bleeding wounds inflicted from the first third of his latest song. Color was starting to fade and flicker in his vision, and he saw silhouettes of people. A person, or two, here and there, who shouldn't be there...

He knelt, placing his baton low to the ground, an action his dancing troupe mimicked with their hands. His songs in bankai were usually not meant as incomprehensibly powerful strikes, but he could utilize them that way if he so chose. He would do so now, and defeat his enemies. He swung his baton high, pointing it directly skyward, and his dancers again mimicked his actions.

"_CRESCENDO!_" he shouted, and spiritual energy flooded the area. It moved from the spectral hands conducting above him through the troupe, who all stood with hands raised towards the heavens. The resulting sound was a single baritone note that steadily increased in volume until could not hear any voices over it. He dodged the chakram sent at him, before initiating his strongest attack. He began to conduct, tapping invisible notes, or perhaps nodes, within the air to deliver energy in the directions he wanted it sent, watching his performers react as he did so. Waves of energy began to bounce between them, forming a spherical cage. His opponents were trapped. Through the glowing field held in place by his dancers' motions, he saw one of them, probably Banri, doing something odd.

He kept up his notes, building energy, the power of the rising volume increasing the output the more he conducted. Finally, the cage was sealed, and the next step was the attack itself. Pouring as much of his spirit energy into a single point as he could, he channeled it to the ground directly underneath his opponents. At the same time, there were two spikes in the spiritual pressure he was sensing--almost one after the other. First Miya's, then Banri's. Both were rising rapidly.

_Undoubtedly some drug intended to heighten their reiryoku so it can be put into durability. But it won't work._

"_I call this composition,_" he cried, completely away that neither Banri nor Miya could hear him, "_The Destruction Chord: the Dance of Shiva!_"

All at once, the energy Rose had pressed into the ground beneath their feet burst forth. A column of white light, roaring loud enough to be heard over the power of the Crescendo cast augmenting it, blasted into the sky, restricted to its diameter by his bankai's dancers.

At the same time, his very world fractured.

* * *

Renji pulled himself up from the ground, reaching behind him. He felt metal, and his fingers closed around something thin that was stabbing him in one of four spots. Groaning in pain, he pulled his arm back, removing it bit by bit due to the awkward angle. When it finally came loose, he saw that tipped in his blood was what seemed to be an arrow. He had only a second to realize this before the metal rod started to glow a bright red, and then--

"_Aaagh!_"

Renji was blown backwards, landing at an angle as he skidded along the ground, painfully pushing two of the other three bolts deeper before he managed to cushion himself on his arm. The explosion hadn't been seriously damaging, but it had hurt a lot. He rolled onto all fours and got up, wiping his face of blood. There was no shrapnel in his face, so the metal rod must've been converted to reishi and then reiryoku as it exploded.

"They explode if you remove them."

He looked forward, now facing the area where the attack had come from. To his surprise, the person who had sent the arrows hadn't immediately fled for a hiding place: he was strolling forward calmly. He was a tall guy, with brown hair cut short on his head, wearing odd clothing--leather jeans, heavy cleated rainboots, and a leather half-sleeve bolero over a white undershirt. His visible forearms bore black markings, much like the ones that had been visible on the distinctly more humbly-dressed rebels Renji had just fought. Around his chest from shoulder to waist was a bandolier full of capsules and bottles. In his arms was the guilty weapon: a large crossbow. Along one side of his waist, a bandolier was carrying too many crossbow bolts to count right now, forming a half-skirt shape. There was a fairly strong spiritual pressure signature emanating from him, and it made Renji wary.

"Thanks, I noticed." he said, gritting his teeth. "Do you always greet people by stabbing them in the back?"

The man's voice was youthful and cheerful when he responded.

"It's more Kazuo's style, but if it works, it works."

The man's left hand drifted the half-skirt of crossbow bolts. Renji, taking note of his choice of weapon, drew his zanpakuto, wordlessly releasing it into the Zabimaru form.

"Are you working with the Quincies?!" Renji demanded, brandishing his chain blade. "I thought we had all of the Soldats that were still causing trouble locked up ten years ago!"

"This is a shikai, if that answers your question." the bowman said, drawing five bolts and bringing them up to the crossbow. Renji watched as he pulled back the drawstring with several ratcheting clicks, but slotted only the first one between his thumb and forefinger into it. As the drawstring had been pulled back, a small blue holo-field had been raised, conforming to the space above the bow's frame. The four other bolts were inserted there, where they hovered at the back of the field above the slotted one.

_Well, that's definitely no Quincy_, Renji thought. _No Quincy would use a complicated technological process like that when even low-level ones can fire off arrow volleys with no warning or notice_. He saw the main aim the crossbow, and when they fired, he swung with the blade facing flat, batting them away from himself. _I'm injured and my mobility is going to be limited...but I can't take the arrows out or they'll explode,_ he realized. _I don't have time to test the waters. This guy is clearly a bigger deal than those other two from before. My bankai will provide a durable mass to hide behind, and I'll need the extra firepower to take him out_.

"Bankai--!" Renji said, but he stopped short.

His attention was drawn to something in the distance, and he wasn't the only one: a passing glance told him that the bowman, too, was looking off over his shoulder at the same thing Renji was seeing: a massive column of light reaching into the sky.

* * *

Banri opened his eyes. He could see the sky above, and smell burned flesh, and he knew who he was, so he was definitely still alive. He sat up, immediately wishing he hadn't due to the immense pain it produced in his back and limbs. Looking down at himself, his modesty was barely preserved; his lucky jacket had finally been destroyed beyond repair, being nothing but ash now, and a good deal of his shirt, pants, and shoes were gone as well, though he still had enough fabric to keep things safely tucked. The visible flesh was badly singed, but his nerves were evidently still working. He didn't care to see how much hair he had left.

"Miya...Miya?"

They weren't out of the woods yet, the golden limbs of the dancing troupe still surrounding them, but Miya was laid closeby to him, looking every bit as terrible as he felt. For a moment his heart hammered as he feared the worst, but then her eyes fluttered open. She rolled over, coughing, and he helped her sit up.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Banri looked up, getting a good look at the Butodan that had very nearly killed them. The dancers were...well, it was hard to tell what they were up to, or suffering as it were, right now. He'd never seen a computer or even a working screen in his life, but being marked with a programming link and having had to perform Tenteikura satisfactorily before, and been rather lousy at it, that's what he'd have compared the scene to: a lot of the dancers 'glitching', as if struggling to maintain their forms. Their shapes and colors were distorting in jerky, twitchy movements, none of which were synchronized anymore. Some were missing body parts, others missing the flower-like masks they wore and leaving the faces blank. The music they'd been experiencing no longer held a hook-like hold on their minds, and simply echoed around the rooftops as a disjointed, unstable set of notes.

"Look!" he heard Miya say.

Banri followed the direction of her finger, and saw the captain, Rojuro, kneeling and clutching at his mask. Above him, the spectral hands that conducted the troupe were similarly twitching and distorting. Just as both the hands and the dancers around them finally dissolved into fragments of spirit energy and faded away, leaving him holding not a conductor's baton but a thorned whip, Rojuro yelled out. He saw the cracks along the bird mask shape extend and multiply, bits of it flaking off, before it shattered entirely.

"His Destruction Chord faltered." he commented, readying his dispenser tube. "Petered out before it could hit the peak."

"Still would've killed us if you hadn't pumped us." Miya added. That much was true; they'd been perhaps overconfident in assuming they could take on a Visored captain. But regardless of how close a victory it was, the fight was theirs, now. "How long was that mask of his supposed to last?"

"Three minutes." Banri added. "He got a few short tracks in there, but he didn't make it to the actual mark. His mask staved off the effects for a while, but it's broken now 'cuz the hallucinogens were still creepin' in, gettin' at his brain. The auditory hallucinations made it so he couldn't properly conduct the tones to attack us with, and I'd imagine it's causing him a fair bit of trouble right now hearing the voice of his zanpakuto--and his Inner Hollow, for that matter."

"Can you put him down?" she asked him.

Banri peered at Rojuro. He wasn't totally defeated, judging by the shikai he still had in his hand. But as it stood now, that wasn't a bet he was willing to take.

"I can, if you can heal us real quick."

"Get us started."

Banri lifted his dispenser, feeling it fill with a fine crystal powder of hardcore material. Leaning back and putting it to his lips, he blew, creating a thick spread directly upward, which flew ten feet into the air before settling. He repeated this three more times, until the two of them were hidden behind a fog of the stuff. The whirl of Soyokaze was heard, and then it was hovering in the air directly above him, Miya exercising her control over the wind. It spun rapidly in place, sucking in the air around it in a tight vortex, eventually creating a dome of moving air around them visible by the powder fog being pulled along it. The powder was pulled inside the spinning disc and sprayed down on the two of them as a pale green fluid, much thicker and more more effective than usual given the quantity and potency of the drugs.

Banri heard a yell beyond the dome from Rojuro, but couldn't they couldn't afford to stop the process. The fluids spraying down on them in a fine mist rapidly healed their injuries, taking them from severe to extensive, from extensive to moderate, and from moderate all the way to negligible in a matter of seconds. They even felt their expended reserves of spirit energy creeping back upward. Junzo had been right; their combination of powers made for a strong duo.

The spread of crystals was used up just before they could reach a state of feeling as though they'd never fought this tilted battle. The vortex vanished, and Soyokaze slowed down in its spinning and levitated into Miya's hand. The dealer looked forward, and saw an alarming sight.

"Get away! Get away!"

Rojuro's eyes were bloodshot, and a spot of drool was leaking out of the left side of his mouth. He was approaching them at a rapid pace, lashing out with his thorned whip wildly, clearly speaking to and attacking something that wasn't there. The two of them backed up and dodged out of the way as the swings approached them, taking chunks out of the tile around them. Rojuro, on the higher rooftop, didn't seem to be paying attention to his surroundings, or wasn't able to properly perceive them.

"Wait for it--" he heard his partner advising him.

She knew what was about to happen: Rojuro's foot met empty air and the man fell, tumbling down onto the lower roof they occupied. Banri sprang; using flash step, he skidded into place behind Rose, grabbing him in a chokehold and kicking him in the back of the knees to make sure he didn't rise to his feet. The man was struggling wildly, and still emitting a vast spiritual pressure, but Banri held him tight. Taking firm hold of his dispenser and readying the injector on the one end, he plunged it into Rojuro's collarbone, sending in a nice little chemical cocktail. The captain still struggled under him, then began twitching. The dealer let his chokehold drop, backing away. The Visored's limbs continued to swing wildly as he stumbled forward, then fell to one knee, then both.

For a moment, nothing happened, escept that the poor musician was holding his head and groaning, and then holding his stomach. And then--

"Eurgh." came Miya's voice.

Rojuro had vomited wildly, spewing up a huge amount of bile that slid over the rooftop, the woman dodging out of the way to avoid getting splashed with sick. The man heaved a second time with greater force, then a third. On the four heave, the flow was lighter, and light still on the fifth, until he was dry heaving.

"Emergency detox is never pretty." Banri agreed mildly. Right now, the captain was flushing out all of the drugs he'd been exposed to over the course of their fight, and purging it even from his bloodstream and brain, something you couldn't normally flush. The results were going to be messy no matter how fine-tuned he'd managed to make the process in his years of experimentation. Venturing closer, Banri held onto his arm and hair, just making sure the captain didn't face-fault into a puddle of his own vomit when the detox finally ceased.

Six or seven dry-heaves in, it finally did, and the dealer carefully laid him down to the side, unfortunately not being able to do more for his dignity than that. He was unconscious a second later.

"You think we should take him to infirm?"

"No," he said. "He doesn't have any actual injuries, and there won't be any lasting damage from the drugs. Best to just let him lay unconscious until his body's back to normal."

"And what about us?" she said.

"Let's just take a minute to siddown," he said, suddenly quite tired. "I think we can go back to the hideout after this, we've more than earned it."

"Agreed."


	18. Junzō

Renji stared as the column of light first roared, then flickered and, rather than fade to nothing as he'd have expected, simply disappeared. Undoubtedly, someone had just unleashed a decisive attack. It was time for himself to think along the same lines.

"Bankai!" he roared. "_Hihio Zabimaru!!!_"

Spirit energy poured out of him and his blade, and a thick cloud expanded outward from him, taking shape as the massive skeletal snake that was his bankai--blackened from the acquisition of his true potential during the war. When the dust cleared, Renji bore a fur cowl around his shoulder, with an ape skull ornamenting the left side. He saw his opponent at the opposite end of the street, with crossbow raised.

Renji wasted no words, swinging the hilt of the bankai, a large bone 'tail'. The skeletal beast reacted, unraveling and launching itself at the rebel at high speed. He turned out to be surprisingly fast, deftly dodging his strike without using flash step, while Hihio Zabimaru's skull left a large crater dug out of the street. He landed on a longer rooftop, running along it. Through the coils still holding attacks at bay, Renji saw him selecting several more bolts.

"Is that really what you're going to do? You haven't changed anything, you've just given me a bigger target!"

The rebel began firing them one by one into the length of Hihio Zabimaru. They stuck within the bone, but did no damage. Renji smiled to himself.

There didn't seem to be any other presences in this vicinity, else they'd have run away screaming while his fight with Saneaki and Nari was happening, so a little property destruction here and there shouldn't deter him from fighting at full capacity, right? Renji swung the tailbone again, and Hihio Zabimaru responded by dragging itself through the length of building, crashing along its side and reducing it and its rooftop to so much rubble, but this, too, failed to catch the rebel.

He frowned as he felt, through his bankai, the stabbing of bolts into its bone segments, but these were just pinpricks, not nearly enough to cause anything resembling damage to such a massive and powerful beast. Those pinpricks continued as he filled the surrounding area with his bankai's coils, throwing lunge after lunge with the skeletal head and depleting the room his opponent had to fight in. The arbalist was eventually forced to try running and leaping along the very same coils to escape the car-sized jaws biting down on him. Renji, watching him do so, pounced on the opportunity--_Gotcha!_ A coil he landed on immediately jerked itself to the side, crashing him into a wall.

"_Hikotsu Taiho!_"

The jaws of his beast opened as Renji channeled a huge amount of energy through it. The resulting blast tore through the street, cascading winds buffeting over Renji as the energy poured out in a huge blast. Despite this, he didn't feel any difference in the spiritual pressure flow coming from the enemy. Peering closer, he saw why: his blast was being stopped, pushed out to the sides. He vaguely recognized the spell--a transparent barrier, from the higher ranges of kido. Danku? It was one Captain Kuchiki was fond of. Renji gritted his teeth, his swipe at a swift win thwarted. The skull that the blast had been roared from was immediately pricked with another bolt.

_Is it just me, or was that bone cannon blast weaker than I was expecting? That fight from before might've taken more out of me than I expected... Higa Zekko is a lot easier to use these days, but that doesn't mean it's trivial... And speaking of Higa Zekko..._

His next part of his plan of attack was to use exactly that. Granted, his opponent might've been watching him during the last fight for long enough to see him use that attack, but he wouldn't count on this enemy realizing it could be used both in shikai and bankai. And even if he did, it'd be unlikely he could counter it. What he was waiting for was--

_Fwoosh!_

The sound of whistling wind rang in his ear as his thoughts were interrupted. A bolt had just been sent zooming past his ear, the slipstream from it pulling at his braid. A _boom!_ and the sound of collapsing walls was all Renji needed to hear. His eyes widened as he saw the crossbow being aimed at him now, a clear shot through the gap he was using to observe the effects of his attack. He brought the tail end of his bankai up in front of his face just in time, and the bolt embedded itself in the bone segment just above it...which started to glow red.

"Yegh!"

Renji swung outward, flinging the bone segments away from him and collapsing the entirety of the snake, while the bone segment attached to the tail handle he held exploded violently some distance away. As he watched, the bolts embedded in other segments--twelve, by his count, including that of the head--failed to detonate as they hit the ground.

_So he can detonate them remotely...and selectively_, he realized. This was not a surprise; in fact it had sort of been what he was counting on, his opponent trying to destroy his bankai by detonating arrows embedded along its body. It was a simple enough immediate solution, and had he done so, Renji would've been able to surprise him with Higa Zekko...granted, nothing stopped him from doing that now, but it raised the odd question of why he hadn't detonated them. To Renji, it didn't make sense to pepper explosives along a large enemy and then fail to use them.

No matter, the difference was negligible. Swinging the handle of his bankai, Renji called out to Hihio Zabimaru, willing the spined vertebrae to rise into the air and attack the enemy from their many angles. He grinned as he saw them rise and begin to glow...only for them to drop, along with his jaw, back to the ground.

"What?"

He tried again, and the same thing happened, yet they didn't get as far into the air or even glow as brightly. Trying a third time, they only made it a few inches off the ground each before his attempt at Higa Zekko failed even faster than before.

_What's going on?_

This time he tried pumping more and more spirit energy than he ever had into the segments of his bankai, not trying to perform the attack but simply attempting to reform his bankai and this, too, failed, leaving his lungs breathless and his muscles straining. Renji's eyes met that of the crossbowman's, him simply standing there with weapon at the ready, calmly observing. Bile started to rise in Renji's throat.

_Okay, one more time. This definitely has something to do with his crossbow bolts, but he only got a few of the segments...I still have two hundred and eighty-seven segments I can use for Higa Zekko, or _ _Zabi Sōkutsu_...should really go for the latter, if I can...  


He tried again, this time attempting to levitate only the segments that weren't pierced with a bolt. To his surprise, this actually seemed to work, but the red glow of his spirit energy began to fizzle and dissipate not long after the heads began to form, and soon they too dropped to the ground. Renji let out a breath, and straightened up. The bolts in his back ached, and he wondered if he wasn't feeling more tired than he should...

"What the hell have you done to me?!" he demanded of the man across from him. "Are those bolts of yours poisoned?"

"No." came the answer. "At least, not the ones I hit you with."

Renji furrowed his brow.

"I suppose I should clarify," the bowman continued, "the bolts don't necessarily explode when they're removed. They explode when they're cut off from their supply."

Renji's eyes widened. Realization dawned on him as he translated the word 'supply' to its true meaning: their energy source. _Damn it all_, he thought, as he felt a tremor in his knee and realized his internal spirit energy was already dangerously low. I should've just taken the bolts out of my back as soon as I got hit and eaten the damage...at least that way I'd still have enough energy to fight this guy and win...

"You can't reform your bankai because the bolts I've placed within its segments will just drain any spirit energy you try to run through them," the man commented, "and you can't even control the segments I didn't get, because there's still three bolts in your back restricting your flow of spirit energy from its source. You weren't at a disadvantage when the fight began, the fight was already lost."

Renji ground his foot into the dirt. He wanted to yell that defeating his bankai wouldn't be so easy, but he couldn't see any way to make that true. It seemed as though he'd fallen for a pretty basic trick. Surely there had to be another way he could fight even without his bankai, right? He'd managed so far, and he'd managed before...

He saw the main loading more bolts into the levitator field over his slot. In answer, Renji held out his hands, crossing them with palms out.

"Hado #31," he said, but he stopped short. The fireball in his hands was small, and smoking, and giving off sparks. Already, his spirit energy reserves were so low that trying to cast hado spells seemed bound to backfire. He let it fade with no more said, lunging to his side to dodge the spread of bolts that were fired in his direction thereafter, whistling tones following them.

_Should I take the bolts out of my back? I don't have a reference for how big an explosion is after how long I've been fighting, but with my energy reserves this low, I doubt I'd be able to take the blast and stay conscious..._

He dodged more bolts, batting one away with the bone handle he still held, struggling to think of some alternate solution, or at least a place to hide. Fleeing, he remembered the church, and altered his course for that building, which luckily no one had destroyed yet. Moving around to its side, he found a window, rushing and leaping at it with his shoulder forward. Glass shattered as he hit the ground and rolled, finding himself in an odd sort of room, odd enough to give him pause.

There was a podium, and...what were they called? Pews? He'd been to churches within the living world--often tracking down Pluses or Hollows that bound themselves to worship sites. But never had he encountered one in the Seireitei, which made him wonder why he hadn't questioned its presence sooner. Though soul reapers as a whole didn't believe, it wasn't as though worship sites didn't exist among the Soul Society--there were more traditional shrines dotting both the Seireitei and the Rukongai...usually to worship figures like Mimihagi. This one seemed more...western, with the window he'd just busted through being stained glass, and the rest matching. Strictly speaking, there was no reason proper churches of this style couldn't exist in Seireitei either, but...with the Soul King being what he was, there was no real reason for it. And there weren't really any other deistic figures one would worship, except...

His thoughts were cut off by another whistling arrow that zoomed over his head through the broken window, reminding him that he still wasn't safe. He leapt over some of the pews, heading for the center of the chamber, and trying to find an area where there wasn't clear access to him through a window. As he glanced over his surroundings, he saw a red glow, and turned in time to see a the opposite wall where the arrow had struck exploding.

_Boom!_

Renji covered his face with his arm, resisting the urge to cough on the dust--it looked, smelled, and felt like a thousand years' worth of dust had just been dislodged from that one section of wall blown out. There was a hole there now open to the street. Renji kept moving, only for another arrow to whiz through a window on the opposite side of him, leaving a hole in the stained glass. It, too, struck the opposite wall and was silent for a moment, only to glow red and explode.

The captain realized what was going on, and kept his head low, trying to figure out what his enemy was doing. He'd just been looking for a large, undamaged building to put some walls between him and the arbalist, but he had fully expected to be chased in here. Hell, windows aside, there was nothing special about this building and there was no reason he shouldn't have kicked the door in and chased Renji in here. But instead, it seemed as though he was trying to blow out a wall of the church and...and...

_And collapse it on me_, he realized. _He probably thinks I'm weak enough now that the building falling in could take me out. And to be honest, it probably could. Though, why he doesn't just detonate the arrows still in my back is another question..._

All of a sudden, he had an idea. Several ideas, actually. A few things were starting to come together.

Carefully and under his breath, he began chanting an incantation as he knelt between a row of pews. He had used this sort of spell to great effect once before, in his battle with Szayelapporo. Luckily, binding spells were far less prone to backfiring than attacking spells. Just as he finished the incantation, the wall closest to him was blown out, exposing him to sunlight and causing the whole building to shudder ominously.

"Bakudo #21: Sekienton." Renji muttered.

Despite his low reserves of energy to place into kido, the incantation strengthened it quite a bit. The burst of red smoke consumed the whole building, billowing out of the windows that had been pierced or shattered. Renji took this opportunity to escape out of one of the holes in the wall, opposite the wall where the arrows had been coming through, under cover of the red cloud. From there, he used flash step extensively, trying to move quickly but also quietly. He flashed between buildings, keeping out of sight until he was some distance away from this block, and then circling back, leaping up on to a rooftop, and from there, traveling a story or two above ground level. He quickly spotted the crossbowman, on the ground in the lot to the side of the church some thirty meters. From what he could see, it didn't seem like he'd caught Renji's escape. He could see the sleeve on the back of his bandolier where he would've kept his crossbow.

He felt behind him for the bolts still in his back, then felt the fur cowl around his shoulders. He made some adjustments as quickly as he could at the odd angles, while keeping his eye on the enemy, forcing the bolts through the cowl's fabric, and then trying to register minute changes in his body's energy flow. Satisfied, he slowly began to pull the bolts out, one by one, struggling to keep his teeth locked together so that he didn't let out any grunts of pain the rebel would hear. He felt himself bleeding, and was reminded that these weren't just trivial wounds. Once all three were removed, he removed the cowl and paid close attention to what was going on below.

The rebel was holding still, seeming to consider the site of the half-destroyed church almost completely covered in a scarlet smoke cloud. Judging by the high-level bakudo he'd cast before, he was guaranteed to know the spell he'd used and know that it was used to hide escapes and, on occasion, traps. Squinting closer, he saw the man lift his crossbow slightly, as if deliberating, and then slide his hand along the length of it. Renji could see a protrusion--a button, which the arbalist pressed. Instantaneously, the arrows now piercing the fabric of his fur cowl glowed an angry red. Renji smiled.

"Hey, asshole!"

Renji was thrilled to see a shocked look on the rebel's face as he twisted around and his eyes went wide, just as he threw the cowl down towards him with all the force he could muster.

_BOOOOOM!_

Renji had to shield himself with both hands, being slid back several feet on the roof he was occupying due to the blast force. The explosion was fierce enough to blast apart in its radius, but would it be enough to even the odds?

Once the dust cleared, and he got both a good look at his opponent and a good feeling for his pressure field, he saw that the answer was 'no'. But still, what he saw made him feel damn good: bleeding wounds and smoking burns covered a good portion of the man's face, chest, and arms, and his shirt and pants both bore burned patches. The man seemed to have hardened his spiritual pressure and concentrated it on his front side as soon as he'd noticed his mistake. Renji noticed that the bandolier he wore was completely undamaged, as well as the crossbow he held, which must have shielded him from some minor portion of the damage as well. Most satisfying was that drop in the pressure signature--half as strong as it had been before. And while Renji was too smart of a fighter by now to take that as an indicator of how close he was to victory, it still made him understand that that attack had hurt like hell.

"Looks like you didn't consider a few things." Renji called down to the man, where he met his eyes. The arbalist was frowing and squinting up at him. "You don't seem to have realized that draining my spirit energy to such a low point would make me harder to track, especially if you couldn't see me--or that my cowl was part of my bankai, and as such, it was also an energy source your crossbow bolts could feed off of. Looks like we're one for one--I outsmarted you."

It probably wasn't wise to gloat like that over an enemy he hadn't yet defeated, especially when he was on his last legs himself, but it just felt so good. He rarely got a chance to show up enemy fighters, especially with a good bit of brains over brawn.

The man down below turned to the side and spat, and Renji saw both a wad of blood and something small, pink, and fleshy hit the cement. The man turned back to him and spoke, and a furl of smoke was visible escaping his lips.

"Oh yeah? We're keeping score?"

He sounded mildly amused, and slowly, his frown became a smile. That much, Renji didn't like. Nor did he like the clacking sounds of crossbow bolts leaving their belt and being slotted in. Luckily, he had another idea.

He turned on his heel and ran, hearing bolts fly past him. The other man could be heard using shunpo behind him to keep pace, though Renji doubted that he would manage to hit him as injured as he was. For his own part, his energy had been drained to such a low point that his own flash step wasn't taking him very long distances. Still, it was enough to avoid getting hit again as he sprinted across rooftops, kicking off of chimneys and leaping across gaps. He was headed back towards the place where he'd left the skeletal pieces of his bankai, minus the furthest tailbone still in his hand that functioned as the handle.

Finally arriving at the site where he'd first fought this man, he leapt down onto the street, holding the bone handle up in front of his hands.

"Bakudo #10: Hōrin!" he yelled.

Renji felt a noticeable drop in what energy reserves he had left as an orb of yellow-orange light, crackling with electricity, came into being. It expanded above the bone handle, topping it rather like a scoop on a cone. He kept moving, zig-zagging across the street so as not to be hit by stray arrows, while he aimed his spell. A thick rope of light burst forth from the ball of energy he held, running through the hollow vertebrae that he saw on the ground. He fed the rope through every segment he could find that had a draining bolt embedded in it, and fed it through quite a few that didn't simply to keep up the ruse. There was another sound of shunpo, and Renji whirled around to find the crossbow pointed at him.

"You've reconstructed your bankai."

This was pretty much true; by controlling the kido rope he had fed through the segments, the result was a large skeletal snake, tipped with the skull segment in place, though it could no longer move its jaws. This substitution was clumsy and didn't control nearly as well, but...

"With that spell being strung through the hollow pieces, but rather than suffusing them with your energy, my arrows can't drain the energy from it. That's pretty clever. I don't really see what it changes, though. You still can't use any of the attacks you'd need to beat me."

"I don't need those attacks to beat you!" Renji roared, stepping to the side as the bolt aimed at him sped past. He swung the amalgamation of glowing rope and bone at his enemy, slamming it into the ground head-first, and predictably failed to land his hit.

_I just need to..._

To hell with throwing around this construction willy-nilly, he had better ideas. Renji began swinging the kido rope wildly around him, pulling it in tight so as to maintain a whirlwind of bone around him. This seemed to confuse the arbalist, who instead of firing a bolt or dodging, simply leapt up to a rooftop and onto another road to make space. Renji followed him, tearing huge chunks out of his surroundings. The moment he leapt back onto the tiling, he pushed his spell further. Whereas before he was content to simply seal the pieces together, he now allowed the rope of light to project itself beyond Hihio Zabimaru's skull, as if the colossal snake construct were spitting out a long tongue.

"Aargh!"

_Got him!_

His opponent was knocked off his feet and rolled on the ground. This was all Renji needed--he leapt down onto the street facing the rebel. He just needed to land a hit, but his enemy was getting up. Renji thought he knew what would be the next thing this guy tried, so he intended to make it easy.

"Hah!"

He launched the rope of bone segments forward, but the bowman was ready. Before the skull could slam into him, he let loose an arrow...

...which hit the orb of energy powering his rope head-on, causing it to burst.

There was a chain reaction. The Hōrin rope, no longer attached to its root source, vanished just as the skull arced over the enemy's shoulder, leaving him unharmed. Consequently, with the rope gone mid-flight, the segments all clattered to the ground once more, leaving him standing in the midst of a large cluster of the spiked bones. The enemy's smile was back, but this was exactly what Renji wanted--what he needed.

_And now all I have to do is..._

Renji let his bankai vanish, re-sealing his zanpakuto and sheathing it at his left side. The bowman, still readying another bolt, didn't have time to do more than look in horror at the twelve he'd already shot before now dropped to the pavement, their energy source having vanished, too. There was another angry, brilliant red glow.

** _BOOOOOOMMM!_ **

Renji wasn't just sent skidding back--he was hurled backwards and landed flat on his back a dozen meters away, ripping a cry from him as he landed directly on his open arrow wounds. The explosion had been deafening, and he struggled to get up, shaking off a ringing in his ears and blinking back stars.

'They detonate when cut off from their supply', hadn't that been what he'd said? Shame on the enemy for forgetting a critical aspect of his own weapons. Then again, Renji supposed he could feel pretty proud of himself for turning a man's own weapon against him not once, but twice. Now it was time to survey the damage. Was he dead...?

Staggering to his feet, Renji looked forward. At first, he thought he'd killed the man, which...well, technically would've been a success, but would've prevented him bringing him in for questioning. But as he peered forward, he saw the figure stirring, then rolling over, and then pulling itself to a standing position. And really, it would've just been nicer if he _were_ dead. The man had lost every bit of his clothing, and huge chunks of flesh. Though all his limbs and facial features were still mostly there, he was covered in red, large segments of bleeding muscle exposed where his flesh had been blasted off. He was astounded the man could even still move. They made eye contact, and Renji saw that his were brown. They would've matched his hair, if he'd had any left. Somehow, he still seemed to be making some sort of expression, though you couldn't rightfully call it 'smiling'. He turned and walked towards his crossbow on the ground, clearly intending to pick it up, despite a lack of bolts on his person, as they'd been scattered everywhere and most destroyed in the explosion.

"That's enough, you're finished." the captain said, actually a little concerned about what this meant. Surely he couldn't still expect to fight in that shape?

"No, Renji." came the same voice from before, which surprised him, as he was sure it would've been reduced to a croak. The empty crossbow was now pointing at him. "That was a clever trick, and you've fought brilliantly, but I've won this fight."

"How the hell can you say that?!" Renji demanded, wondering if he was just delusional. "You're a wreck, I could knock you down with a stiff breeze--quit being stubborn and drop your weapon. If you do that, I can see to it that your injuries are treated."

The arbalist didn't respond, but rather, his hand moves. but...something was off. Renji saw his hand lift and move towards his chest, which still bore its bandolier...

...its completely undamaged bandolier, full of completely undamaged bottles.

"I don't need your help to treat my injuries."

Renji watched, reaching for his zanpakuto, as a bottle was selected from the loop of fabric and the cap popped off, and the man lifted it over his head. A yellowish-green fluid escaped the bottle as it was tipped over, splashing on his head and running down his body. There was an immediate reaction, one that stopped Renji out of simple bizarre fascination. Smoke was rising where the liquid met the bloody flesh, thick smoke, nearly hiding the man's whole form in it. It wasn't thick enough to hide what was happening, though. The captain could see it: where the liquid touched him, the bowman was being regenerated at a rapid pace, whole flesh and skin flowing back into place. It wasn't just reversing the hideous injuries inflicted on him just before--it was actually repairing beyond that. Renji felt the spiritual pressure field of the man, knocked down so low to almost nothing, rapidly rising in power as he was rejuvenated.

The bottle was emptied, and the man was whole again.

Well, not whole. More like 'whole from the upper half'--there were still a few skinless patches from the waist down, and he was still bleeding from what injuries remained. But there was no doubt that those wouldn't last long, either. Renji was distinctly reminded of Mayuri Kurotsuchi, a man who could lose a fight but do enough damage for the victory to be a pyrrhic one, then come back from it all good as new in a matter of seconds. Just what the hell had he watched happen?

"Howl! Zabimaru!"

"That's enough, Renji."

The blade of his shikai bounced off the metal edge of the crossbow, deflected. The lack of bolts didn't stop the bowman--one was generated between two raised fingers and slotted in, and Renji tried to bring the chain blade of his up and across to block the bolt. There was a click of fire, and he felt metal spear his chest. He looked down. It wasn't deep, but the bolt, having pierced through the stretching cords holding together his shikai segments, was indeed piercing his chest.

He felt woozy. He wasn't sure how much energy the kido spells he'd been using had robbed of him, but it felt like far too much for him to be having this reaction now to such a subtle energy drain. Was this one poisoned? Had he missed that? Or was it just that his energy reserves were that low, that he was near dead on his feet? He yanked it out, tossing it away where it blasted out a window, but not in time to dodge the hado spell aimed at him.

"Yergh!"

It was Byakurai that hit him, a hado spell shot from the crossbow like just another metal bolt, shocking him as he went skidding back onto one arm. He gasped, and pulled himself up onto a knee. Unable to maintain shikai, that too faded into the form of his sealed zanpakuto.

Was this guy right? Had he really lost before the fight even began? Here he was thinking he'd decimated his enemy, but then he had to go and cheat the game, and make himself brand new. How the hell had that thing...

"How..." he panted, realizing an exhaustion setting in. He needed some kind of explanation, little though he wanted one.

"I'm not giving you a step-by-step of my powers, but I'll tell you a few things here and there about how I beat you." the man said, walking towards him. "My bandolier--it's got sekisekki laced throughout the fabric. The same material makes up the bottles I keep my chemicals in. Would kinda defeat the point of carrying them into battle otherwise, yeah? They'd get smashed the first time I took a good hit, and then I couldn't use them. So you see, spirit energy- and reishi-based attacks would never work against me as well as they would against someone else. As for my arrows, they're hollow, and they're designed to drain, contain, or deliver different substances or forms of energy. I may not be a Quincy, but I've learned my fair share by studying their methods. It's allowed me to become far more proficient with my shikai than I otherwise would have. We rebel leaders, as it happens, take a great deal of pride on not only researching others, but adapting our powers and strategies from them, as well. That includes our enemies. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need your clothes."

Renji face faulted, aghast. That last part--what on Earth?!

"You want my _what_?!" he demanded, pulling himself up on one arm.

"You heard me. C'mon, you blasted my clothes clean off. Help a guy out."

"I am _not_ giving you my clothes!" Renji said, even as he scrambled out of the way of a hand attempting to grab his captain's haori. "You're the invader here, you blasted your own clothes off!"

"Don't be a dick. Look, I've got plenty of medicine, if you scamper off half-dressed and leave me the rest, I'll heal you up."

"I don't need you to heal me! I'll live!"

This sudden swerve in the conversation was unreal. It added a fair bit of whimsy, sure, but just a minute ago he'd been speculating if that blast had just killed a man. _Two to one, by the way_, he reminded himself. _It still counts_. He was now thoroughly convinced he wasn't going to die, although he was quite sure he might would rather expire than go through with any further hits to his pride.

"Alright, well, let's see." came the man's voice impatiently. "If I told you where Lieutenant Ise is, would you change your mind?"

Renji froze up.

"You know where Nanao is...?" he said. That didn't sound good. It sounded like a threat, but...

"I know where she is." said the bowman. "I also know that she's tied up, and not hurt, and can heal you of your injuries if you were able to get to her. Just sayin'."

Renji was stuck for a moment considering those words. Even if they were true, that didn't mean other rebels hadn't come around in the meantime and tried to harm her. And then after that, he didn't know how close he'd come to harming her himself--if turned out she was right here on the battle site and something he'd done had resulted in her being injured, he'd never forgive himself. Thus, he was hesitantly removing one of his sleeves. "She was supposed to be on the north side of the Seireitei." he said.

"And she was, before I took notice and teleported her near here. I hadn't thought anyone would be dumb enough to try and forcibly dissolve the kido barrier up there."

"So you interfered in her work!" he said angrily, hand reaching for the hilt of his zanpakuto again, even though he knew it was useless. "What's wrong with you, anyway? Why are you holding the citizens hostage?!"

The bowman shook his head, taking the shihakusho from Renji and leaving him with his white shitagi. "If it was a hostage situation, we'd have just made a ransom demand at the beginning of the rebellion. Those citizens are in that kido barrier to keep them safe. If we took the fight to Seireitei without doing that, there's no telling how many people would die. Enough of them are going to be having trouble rebuilding their housing as it is. No, keeping them out of the way was the only acceptable thing to do."

Renji didn't answer. He felt somewhat surprised and mollified with this revelation. It didn't fit at all with his characterization of rebellions that he'd learned about in his academy days. He wondered if he could get away with asking more questions, perhaps openly asking for the rebels' demands. Quite reluctantly, he slipped out of his hakama and handed it over, though the man thankfully didn't seem interested in anything further than that.

_This is humiliating. I can't believe I just handed over both my victory and my dignity. He at least owes me something in return, right?  
_

Once he was dressed roughly in the black of a soul reaper, the bowman was a bowman no longer, as his crossbow had resealed into an unreleased zanpakuto, though a sheath was unfortunately missing, something Renji did not care to help him with.

"Nanao is waiting for someone to untie her further south, six blocks down from here." he said without looking up. "I hid her in a smoothie store, the one next to the Gin Tonbo facing the park. Just call for her, she'll answer you. Now if you'll excuse me," the man said, holding his zanpakuto in a reverse grip, "you can go that way, but I've got to go this way." Then he turned on his heel facing north.

Renji's hand drifted to his zanpakuto again, but it wasn't worth it. Rather, he chose to ask his question.

"Wait! Wait a second!" Renji called out, wanting one last answer before he scampered off in his undershirt and underwear and hoped no one saw him, "I heard you say my name, earlier. I didn't tell you that. You at least have to tell me yours."

The bowman turned, calling back to Renji over his shoulder.

"It's Junzō."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Hōrin" is an anime-only spell with the Bakudo number of 9. However, I'm pretty sure that was an error, as that number is already taken by Bakudo #9: Geki. Thus, I call it #10 here.


	19. Kōsuke

"_Hugh!_"

Soi Fon was not disappointed by this rebel's combat ability--the two of them were dashing and dancing back and forth, bringing their arms and legs up to block fierce punches, palm strikes, chops, kicks, and swipes, and so far neither had landed a hit. Her sword remained undrawn in its sheath, and the same went for him, his red staff resealed and replaced in its sheath; both of them were just testing the waters right now. He was certainly durable--none of her strikes produced any give, but she was used to going up against opponents with a lot more mass than she had. She estimated that between the two of them, she had the greater speed advantage, but not by a great enough margin to get around Kosuke's defenses.

"Tell me something," she asked, immediately before using shunpo in an attempt to land her elbow in the rebel's face, only to be met by open palm, and kicking back to land on her feet, "what is your discretion? Why are you leaving some opponents alive and not others?"

Kosuke's face expressed confusion.

"What are you talking about? We're leaving _all_ of our opponents alive."

Soi Fon defended this time, blocking one low kick and one aimed at her stomach before dodging to the side as his foot was brought down and smashed the concrete where she'd been standing.

"That doesn't add up." she criticized. "You left Marechiyo Omaeda alive, but dealt mortal damage to Izuru Kira. He's in critical condition as we speak."

"That...was..." and Soi Fon saw something she didn't recognize on Kosuke's face now. Was that _guilt?_ "That was an accident... I only meant to knock him out, but he hit me a few times with that weight-multiplying blade of his. He _is_ going to be okay, isn't he?"

Soi Fon answered with a flash step, moving behind him and sweeping his leg out from under him. It took, and he spun head over heels, and she thrust her palm into his gut, being kicked in the head at the same time. The two of them slid backwards, skidding in opposite directions, both flying in somersaults before regaining their footing. She dusted herself off.

"He'll make a full recovery, so long as no other men are turned in to the infirmary with caved-in skulls. The healing talents of our Fourth Division are implacable, even without its leader present." she narrowed her eyes, reminded that significant effort had been expended to make sure that Unohana, Yoruichi, and the rat were out of the fight for a while. But putting that to one side, her question still had not been totally answered. "And why, to be exact, are you putting yourselves out to leave your enemies alive? What are you planning to gain from it?"

Kosuke reacted with more confusion.

"Why would we kill them? I don't get your question. We aren't killing them because we don't need to. Not yet, at least."

Ah, a pacifist. Or, whatever it was you called people stupid enough to leave a defeated opponent alive. Though, that stipulation at the end caught her interest...

She sped forward, zig-zagging back and forth with shunpo and using several feints before going in with a punch. Hers glanced off her opponent's thick forearm, and she felt a weight collide with her as the man's shoulder was thrust forward and caught her, sending her back. He answered with a fierce assault of his own, and she dodged as often as she blocked, throwing arm and leg out to block both punches and kicks. When she pulled both arms across herself to block the last punch, she swept his arm to the side, only to be struck in the chin with his foot, then sent flying with the same. She skidded, rolled, and pulled herself up, coughing.

_Strange...there's an upswing in his spiritual pressure, in the strength of his attacks, whenever he uses a kick as opposed to a punch..._

"So," she said, remaining on three points to better dodge any incoming blows, "why would such a condition be implemented in the largest-scale uprising ever seen within Soul Society? And why is it on any sort of determined limit, if so?"

Kosuke did not press his attack. "The point of this rebellion isn't revenge, however much reason we might have to seek it out. The goal of this uprising is change. You can't really effect change if you don't leave anyone alive to get the message, can you? So we're going to leave as many people alive as we can to hear our point, unless we're forced to do otherwise to win."

Soi Fon herself was not sure that total kills of the enemy and structural change were mutually exclusive concepts, but she swallowed that for now. It wasn't important, because her mission conflicted with that. Any invader to the Seireitei was to be put down, any disruption to their order was to be silenced. To that effect, she stood up, reaching behind herself for her zanpakuto.

"While that's an admirable approach, you should know that I am an assassin, and will be holding myself to no such standard." she said, a cold smile making its way onto her face. "Sting all enemies to death, _Suzumebachi_."

Her sword changed in her hand, becoming a gauntlet tipped with a long metal barb over the middle finger, glinting gold with black stripes.

"That's okay," came Kosuke's voice as he drew his nodachi from its sheath, "I didn't really expec--"

There was a flash, sparks of metal on metal descending to the ground. Soi Fon hadn't landed her hit, but she kept moving, moving across the ground at incredible speed. Kosuke was using flash step as liberally as she was, dodging her every strike or swiping with his long blade to throw her off course. He matched her every strike with a dodge, until she eventually felt a hand close over the wrist where her gauntlet lay. Kosuke swung her, and she moved with it, flipping gracefully as he flung her fifty feet.

"Now, see," he said, holding his nodachi blade in front of him, "trying to kill me mid-sentence would've been really cool if it had worked. But since it didn't, it was just rude. Surpass Earth and Rival Heaven, _Akaibo_."

No more playing around.

The captain lunged, pushing herself to her limits as she sought to kill the man. She spent only milliseconds out of shunpo before pressing in again, flashing over and around to best execute Nigeki Kessatsu. One hōmonka, then two, then three blossomed into place on different parts of the rebel's body. For his part, he wasn't simply allowing her to place them--he was lightning fast, moreso than she'd come to expect from her skirmish with him so far. The red staff was problematic; she commonly found it in the way when trying to approach from behind, as often as when she tried to approach from the front. It was long, and heavy, and she frequently found her strikes interrupted due to having to duck or dodge or backflip out of the way of its swipes. Grapples were her preferred way to solve problems like this; Soi Fon might have been small, but she was also much stronger than her size would suggest. It should have been easy to lock the man down with one arm and deliver the killing blow with the other, but he was quite strong. He tore out of her every grip before she could capitalize on any of them.

Two things eventually caught her attention. The first was that he had stopped altogether dodging her strikes. Frustratingly enough, this allowed her to land a few more hits, but didn't get her any closer to actually landing a second hit on the stamps she'd already placed. She had a feeling he knew that. A hundred homonkas meant nothing if none of them were ever met with a follow-up. Second, the sacrifice of effort towards dodging had meant that Kosuke was counterattacking a lot, and she had noticed yet another uptick in his spirit energy. His kicks were now noticeably much stronger than his punches, and he caught her badly in the stomach with one, launching her straight into a wall which caved around her. She brought her arms up, feeling them bruise as the staff was brought down on them hard, sending her through at least three walls. She got up, a tad dazed, and observed her options. And yet, wasn't this the perfect time for a coup-de-grace? The hits she'd taken and the walls she'd demolished had kicked up a fair amount of dust.

She tensed. This was a trick she liked, but which required full speed and deadly precision. There was a homonka placed dead center of Kosuke's back, and if she pulled this off, she could strike it and watch him die. She placed herself in a sprint crouch, and withdrawing her spiritual pressure field. When she was ready, she sped forward.

"_Yigh!_"

_Lunge forward, meeting the opponent face-to-face, then feint, maintaining a speed clone at the front and then at the sides, while striking from behind. Fool him in such a way as to keep him from realizing what you've done until it's too late._

But her barb met thin air. Soi Fon watched, hating herself, as her opponent ducked to the side. The trouble was, he seemed to be ducking to _both_ sides.

"_Argh!_"

She was struck by two different palm strikes. Caught off-guard by what she'd seen, she was sent flying backward through a tree and..._was that a vendor stall?_ Struggling to get to her feet quickly and shaking grass out of her hair, she realized she'd been sent out of the alleyways in which they'd been fighting. She stood up, but there was no need to rejoin Kosuke--he was already joining her on this block...both of him.

She blinked a couple times, and was able to confirm that she was indeed seeing two Kosukes. Quite disconcertingly, whatever technique was being used to create the clone, she wasn't familiar with it.

_That isn't a speed clone_, she realized. _Speed clones are what happen when a user flash steps so fast that they shed an outer layer of reishi, which continues reflecting light, but quickly dissolves--they can't be maintained for more than an instant unless the person that created it constantly re-creates it with successive flash steps. They can't actually attack because they're not solid, not useful for anything more than confusion or misdirection_. But this one had struck her with equal force to the real one...

Something else was bothering her about this, too. The two clones weren't identical. By her count at a quick glance, the two dozen or so homonkas she had placed on him since releasing her shikai seemed to have been split between the twin men sauntering towards her now.

"How did you do that?" she asked. "My homonkas...how did you--?"

"The homonka is just a stamp denoting the entry point of your dormant chemical. I didn't remove them, I just put them to the side for a while."

"That...doesn't really answer my ques--"

Her response was interrupted by a bo staff to the face. She tasted blood, and wind rushed in her ears as she was thrown backward.

_Alright, I should stop asking for answers and find them myself. I have one idea..._

Soi Fon leapt high into the air, pushing herself to find a sky view of about four to five stories. From there, she observed both her opponents and his surroundings. If she could just find cover, some safe place to launch an attack from...that tree she had felled when she was knocked through it, would that provide cover? It was worth a shot.

She launched herself down below, back to the earth, aiming for one of the Kosukes. He dodged her stomp into the ground, as she'd expected. She put on the most intense burst of speed yet, flashing back and forth around the area, not staying still long enough to be subject to an attack. She left layers of reishi in her wake, five, then ten, then twelve speed clones appearing and vanishing along the street, while she tracked both Kosukes and their responses to her. Both were holding up their staves, readying for an attack. The last place Soi Fon flashed to was behind the felled tree, trusting the large wall of leaves to hide her movements and her spell while also letting her surprise her enemy.

"Bakudo #30," she muttered, moving her hand and creating a glowing yellow line, stopping her hands at the three points where she'd launch the attack from, "Shitotsu Sansen."

The three yellow missiles glowed, and blasted through the branches she hid behind, one aimed at the first Kosuke and the other two aimed at the second. Both hit their mark, the one pinning him to a nearby wall and the two pinning theirs to the ground.

_Now...!_

Soi Fon lunged forward at high speed, moving to strike a homonka on the closer of the two pinned enemies. Her barb descended, but was stopped short, with a sound like something caught in a rotor ringing out. Her arm was thrown back, and she stumbled with the force of the repulsion. She saw the guilty spell at once: Enkōsen, spinning in place a few feet to the fore of the man she'd been trying to attack. Its surface was messy, a piece taken out of it in the middle that blurred into a circle as it continued to rotate.

_That spell was incanted wordlessly...I have no way of knowing which one of them cast it. He's very good about keeping his clone act secure._

There was a cracking sound, and a burst of light as her yellow beam's hold was broken. This time she was ready, leaping to the side as a foot was thrown at her. Similar sounds arose from the other end of the street where the other was pinned.

Wait a minute...that was it!

"Despite your best efforts," she heard, and a glance confirmed that both the enemies' mouths were moving, "you're the one that's been taking the hits. I don't think continuing with this tactic is a smart idea."

Yes, she was sure now. She had a way to differentiate the clone from the real thing. She just had to test it out.

Again, her closest target would be the one she moved to attack. She lunged, engaging him, and didn't expect to be left alone while she tried. Both of them were sweeping with punches, kicks, and their bo staves. Her small size was her advantage here--staying in close was dangerous, but each enemy had to try and hit her without hitting their ally. Flash step chases ensued, their skirmish moving from one part of the area to the other. Not missing a beat, she just had to find...the right...

_There!_

She saw her moment, stepping over a low sweep from one Kosuke and dodging a downward strike from the other in one movement. She brought her foot down, keeping the staff pinned to the ground, then used it as a springboard. This time her lunge with her barb was successful. She drove it straight into the Kosuke's eye.

There was a flash of light, and the man exploded. Soi Fon dropped, the staff dissolving underneath her, and the enemy's weapon flying over her head.

_That was the clone, then. Oh well, I'll just have to test this out on the next few._

Sure enough, she turned around, and the real Kosuke was splitting, seeming to move in three directions at once and then separating into three bodies. Her eyes caught something curious, though. What was that she'd seen just now, near his chest?

Repelling three enemies proved to be substantially more difficult than repelling two. No longer were they concerned with attacking enemies. Several times she was caught between two only for the third to strike her and send her flying. Though durability wasn't her strong point, she was far from the most fragile captain...she'd have to brace herself and commit to surviving a few assaults.

She was thrown through a window, landing in a pile of glass and not wasting time shaking herself free of it. She got up, observing her enemies--they were all in a group, facing outward now, all peering in her direction.

She threw herself back into the fray, leaping around her grouped opponents, searching for one ready to strike. She skidded to a halt in front of the furthest Kosuke from the house, watching him swing his staff. Instead of dodging, she blocked with her arm, grabbing it with her free hand. Her leg shot out, just to keep him from swinging the staff with her on it, and hooked around the ankle of another Kosuke. With two of them captive, she stomped her free foot on the ground for balance, dragging with all her might, and tripped up the one while pulling the captive staff across her, blocking the jab from the third Kosuke. And in order to dislodge her, the first one would...

"Urgh!"

She took a foot straight to the face, being sent flying and righting herself mid-air. Alright, that was one confirmed fake.

She rocketed around the field, attacking the three men in such a way as to force them to repel her with kicks. She discarded the one from before, dodging and blocking him as needed but not pressing him with attacks. Soon enough, a foot came her way, and she blocked with her arm, being sent skidding back.

_So that one's fake, too..._Two of the Kosukes had not exhibited the upswing in spirit energy that she had noticed before whenever he delivered a kick. That meant the last one must be the real one.

"Hurgh!"

Jumping up, she locked her arm around one of the clones' necks--with how strong the true one was, it was unlikely a grapple would be successful with anything less than her whole body's weight. This, she used to its full effect, swinging him around. She got him upside down and on her shoulder, taking hold and flinging him. So far, the clones had displayed more durability than expected, so it was unlikely this would take them out of the picture, but she could set it up so that doing so would be easy. She swung the first clone over, launching him right at the second clone, causing them to stumble and fall. She whirled on one foot, facing the last Kosuke, who was rushing her.

She delivered a fierce assault on the true target, punching and kicking, jabbing and swiping, watching all of her strikes be dodged or blocked, until she eventually leapt up and landed a kick against the shining red staff, using both legs to simultaneously kick him forward and launch herself back. She righted herself mid-air, facing the other way, and, threw her barbed arm out, striking with as much forward force as she could.

The first clone was impaled on her arm, and dissolved into a shower of glowing sparks before it could absorb the full force of her blow, which carried her through. The second clone, right behind the first, was subject to a shallow stab--right where a homonka lay.

The second clone was overtaken with_ Suzumebachi_'s destructive venom, clouds of red interspersing the golden sparks as he exploded. She swung round, trying to catch more of the 'splitting' process, and smirked when she was able to confirm what she saw. Kosuke had split into four this time, but she had seen it--a small crackle of energy around the necklace hanging at his chest. The gears in her head were turning. She could almost certainly put an end to this farce by capturing that gold chain.

Soi Fon stood, discarding her haori and shihakusho, leaving her in her keisen uniform. Across from her, Kosuke readied his staff. Without warning, a powerful wind erupted in the area, encircling the two of them before pulling in, wrapping around her body and limbs like a robe, like armor. The kido being channeled through her body created this wind, which created a circular flow. Aside from generating gale force winds, it also captured her reiatsu before it could completely leave her body, catching it in the current and pulling it back in, revolving it around her. Her limbs felt a tingle running through them, and she took a deep breath, feeling her body adjust to the kido pumping through it. Shunkō, a technique that pulled taijutsu, her most advanced ability, up to a level more than on par with any fanciful weapon or spell, was even more powerful with her mastery of it.

"Mukyū Shunkō!" she cried, and this was her only warning before attacking.

She rocketed around the field, fast. Too fast. Every time she used Shunko, she was amazed at just how wonderful it felt--the speed, the power. There was something to be said for flashy kills, however much her pride as an assassin might disdain them. Far too quickly to stop and bearing immense amounts of force within her strikes, she kicked the first clone hard enough to break its neck, then plunged her fist into the stomach of the next one--both dissolved. The third clone was in front of her with flash step, and she caught his strike effortlessly, deflecting his staff and kicking his leg out from under him. The real thing was already splitting when she delivered a crushing elbow drop to the third clone, destroying it.

She looked up. The first time, he'd split into two beings--one clone and one real thing. The second time, he'd split into three, two fakes and a real one. Now, he was splitting into four. She took a fighting stance, and these lasted not much longer. They were improving, but her strikes were too fast and potent, causing critical damage. Two were down, the third destroyed when she brought a sweeping reverse kick around hard enough to break its staff, curiously annihilating the whole thing. And Kosuke kept splitting.

_Back down to three this time...He hasn't gone over four this whole time. I think the clones' strength and durability decreases with each additional summon.  
_

She kept fighting, feeling no loss of vigor, shaking off one of the clones' grapples easily before the second one could strike her with its _Akaibo_. Her punches and kicks landed with the force of cannon strikes. She just...needed...to get...close enough...

Kosuke split into two again, and she went launched forward, straight through the clone construct, lunging in a shower of gold sparks for her target, barb extended.

"_Gotcha._"

Both of them had spoken at the same time. Soi Fon's barb arm had been grabbed, an inch before _Suzumebachi_ could strike the homonka she'd aimed for. But she was close enough now, triumphantly reaching out and snatching the gold coin hanging from its chain on Kosuke's chest. It seemed to resist her, being magnetized to his body, but it didn't matter, she felt it break as she ripped it off, then leapt backward, landing on three points.

For a moment, there was silence.

_!!!_

"Aagh!"

Soi Fon threw her arm out in front of her, but there was no attack to block. What was blowing her back, pushing her so hard she struggled to stand up straight, let alone press forward despite it, was simply a _monstrous_ wave of spiritual pressure. What she was feeling was easily equal to that of Kenpachi Zaraki without his eyepatch--greater, actually. It weighed her down even within her aerokinetic armor.

"Excuse me," she heard Kosuke say, and she realized that he was half-shouting over the roar of his spiritual pressure still overflowing, "but I really need that back. I'm not bad at withholding my reiatsu, it's just, I've got way too much of it..."

She wondered how he'd gotten hold of such a thing, without access to the sorts of scientists who could create them. It seemed what Omaeda had said was right, this man was almost certainly a traitorous soul reaper. The overflow was subsiding, allowing Soi Fon to slowly stride forward, though she was still trying to accustom herself to the crushing weight, pulling her air currents in tighter to compensate. She looked down at the necklace in her hand. She needed him to keep talking for a moment, if only to give her time to formulate a new strategy that would work for an opponent of drastically increased durability and attack power.

"Tell me what this is!" she said, waving it in front of her. "What does it do?"

"That necklace is designed to control and redirect my spirit energy flow." he answered her. "I use it to shape the vast amounts of spirit energy shedding off of me into tangible 'kido clones' that, by virtue of a programming link, can be directed in some semblance of autonomy."

"Programming Link? What is that?" she asked, genuinely interested, but also trying to come off as though the question were innocuous, and not her stalling. Kosuke's speech had started to resemble the technical talk of someone with a far more visible interest in science.

"It's something I don't have time to explain right now."

Soi Fon readied herself as her opponent raised a hand, palm forward, but something threw her off. It was the sensation of raising one's foot when expecting another stair at the end of a flight, only to meet empty air. She stumbled backward, realizing too late that the sudden weight of Kosuke's spiritual pressure had vanished.

"_Hado #88: Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō._"

There was a sound she would compare to a dragon's roar, or a particularly furious thunderclap, overpowering all other sound in the area. Soi Fon could see nothing, and felt white-hot pain as she was blasted backward. She was caught in what seemed like a fast-flowing river of raw, electrically-charged spirit energy. She struggled, first to regain control of her faculties, and then to reform her Mukyu Shunko, using it to simultaneously form a barrier between the blast and herself and also to pull in some of the energy being used to attack her. Between the blast and the wind currents, she was carried far backwards, but at an angle. She allowed the kido spell's power to push her right out of its path, landing up on top of a tall building some half a mile away. Ignoring the sizzling, smoking wounds on her body, she observed the spell's catastrophic effects.

As if to underscore her analysis, she was deafened yet again by an explosion--a massive one. Shielding her eyes, she looked, and saw the spell hit a wall some two miles off and detonate, spreading a wave of fire everywhere within a huge radius. The heat wave singed her, but caused no greater damage at this distance, though with the damage she'd already taken, that wasn't much comfort. As she blinked away her disorientation from the sudden shift in light once the spell has dissipated, she took in the results left behind.

_I don't even want to think about what that spell would look like if it had been fully incanted..._

The craterous ditch dug out by the spell...it was _enormous_. She had scarcely ever seen spells of such power--this one looked to be like something a Kido Corps Commander would produce, if they were holding almost nothing back. Dozens of feet wide, it had annihilated every single thing in its path, until meeting some sort of barrier that had set off its collapse and explosion. Peering through the smoke, Soi Fon realized that this barrier was a kido wall--_three_ kido walls, two of them shattered. The Dankū spell, as she recognized it. Kosuke had stopped his own attack before it could devastate a larger portion of the Seireitei.

_It seems the man holds true to his ideals, if nothing else..._

But of the man himself, she saw nothing. She was looking down at where he had been standing, the furthest edge of the ditch carved out where the spell had been fired. He was gone. However, she didn't have to wait long for him to reveal himself. She saw a pink glow seeming to come over her surroundings, and she again experienced that missing-stair sensation. Looking up, she found Kosuke, about two hundred feet up, with ten glowing pink missiles forming in the air around him, all pointed at her. _His spiritual pressure is vanishing the instant before he uses kido_, she realized--it permeated the area, but was being brought down to zero when he controlled his energy flow and fueled it into kido.

"_Senjū Kōten Taihō!_"

She balled her hands into fists, realizing as she did that she still held clasped in her left hand the medallion that had hung over Kosuke's neck. Summoning her Shunko and pulling it tight around her, and all of her energy, she bolted.

Flash step took her hundreds of feet. She heard the first energy javelin detonate when it hit the ground some distance behind her, and more followed. She had no time to think, only to absorb information and react to it. Each firing of energy javelins was accompanied by a sudden spike in spiritual pressure, in increments that surely corresponded to the energy flow that produced it steadily reducing its kido focus. Each firing of the energy javelins was also accompanied by a fierce detonation, and they were getting closer. By her count, six, seven, eight...was she fast enough to outpace them all?

The detonation of the ninth javelin only a meter away as she sped off proved the answer to her. A sudden spark of inspiration came to her in the nanosecond that mattered most, and she turned mid-air, her back facing the earth and her palms facing the sky.

"_Nngh--!_"

She felt her arms strained with the force of keeping the javelin from reaching her center of mass, but it didn't matter. She hit the ground, caught mid-air and propelled into the earth, then a crater, then a hole, the ground caving and disintegrating underneath her before the detonation. Pain washed over her and she heard something crack, unsure of whether it was a bone in her hand or the medallion she held within it. Sight left her for the briefest of minutes, and she registered further amounts of damage, most of it internal.

Though she generally preferred the martial ways when it came to combat, she wasn't a stranger to spellwork, or she wouldn't have been able to develop Shunko to begin with. Senju Koten Taiho was a contained detonation; the force of a bomb exploding in a very small space, worsening the overall effects. No doubt Kosuke had chosen that to prevent further damage to their surroundings. Of course, her Mukyu Shunko had kept it from annihilating her, and thinking to block its impact with the spirit energy-redirecting restraining device she had stolen from the man had probably saved her an immediate K.O. Come to think of it, that might have helped with mitigating the damage from the thunder cannon spell from earlier.

She laid there, staring up at the sky from the walls of the crater she'd been buried in. She didn't dare let her Shunko fade--if she lost the kido flowing through her body, she would likely be feeling all of these injuries a lot more, not to mention she'd sharply use up all of her energy just to stand up. No, she let herself rest for a moment. In any other situation, she'd have called that a very stupid idea, but unlike Barragan Louisenbairn or Yhwach, she imagined this opponent wasn't going to go anywhere. He would see the dust being blown out of her little crater and wait for her, too good and sportsmanlike to aim another missile into it, no doubt.

_I'd have been a fool to assume, if I'd had any time, that this man was no good at kido_, she reasoned to herself. Higher forms of kido took not only enough internal spirit energy reserves to fuel them, but experienced, precise control over that energy in order to shape the spells without them backfiring--even someone with as much spirit energy as Zaraki was useless at kido without the discipline to control it. He hadn't been lying when he'd said he wasn't bad at restraining his reiatsu. Nonetheless, she could still feel it from here. Subtly, she pulled in the spiritual pressure he was radiating, pulled it down to her little crater with her air currents, adding it to her own. It wouldn't help her heal all that much, but it would supply her with the energy to burst out of this hole she was in and beat the ever-loving tar out of that man in the sky...

_...I refuse to consider that, this early. I'm not beaten. I haven't been pushed to that point yet. I didn't go this far developing my powers just to fall back on that, again. If he wants that from me, he'll have to work harder for it.  
_

When she felt strong enough, felt confident enough, she moved. She pulled herself up, slamming her hands into the concrete walls to either side, pushing them outward and crumbling them around her. One-handed, she reached up, pulling herself up over the ledge and onto level ground. Peering up, she spotted the rebel, as she'd thought she would, in the same spot some three hundred feet up, gazing down at her. She felt the urge to spit, but also wanted to smirk, refusing him the pleasure of destroying her so easily.

She considered, at length, what he had shown her so far. Obviously there had been more to him than met the eye, from the very first strike that had failed to take off his head. He was an excellent melee fighter in hand-to-hand, zanjutsu, and bojutsu. He was obviously a master at kido usage, firing off enormously powerful spells, sometimes without incantation or any utterance at all. His high-speed movement in battle was respectable, enough to keep her from her preferred method of quickly ending fights in her favor. He used a rudimentary version of Shunko, one that centered on his legs and which he likely didn't even realize he was using, elsewise he'd have restricted it so as to not give away his clones. Finally, he had a good grasp of stealth and misdirection.

"It's not a coincidence that you let me find you, is it?" she called up to him, eyes narrowed. "You act inoffensive and personable, but you're almost certainly the most dangerous of the rebel forces...aren't you?"

There was silence between them, and then she saw, almost imperceptible at this distance, the slow nod of his head.

She first tossed the broken necklace into the deep hole in the ground behind her, freeing her left hand, and then engaged her gale force power, revolving large amounts of energy around her and constricting it tight to her. Exhaustion would not take her, not now, and not ever. And she wasn't going to throw in the towel yet. She had to consider her options, sure--as ridiculous as his spiritual pressure was, it clearly wasn't anything resembling Aizen, given that he still bore several homonkas. That much was a relief, but striking any of them a second time might be a chore she should consider abandoning, with how difficult it would be to pierce a pressure field that thick to begin with. On the other hand, she now knew a critical aspect of his fighting style. The contraction of his pressure field whenever he was readying a kido spell served as an obvious tell, a clear warning signal for her to get out of the way, practically ensuring she wouldn't be hit by one again. And in those critical moments, he was vulnerable. So, whether by destroying his body from the inside out with a lethal venom, or by destroying it outside in by beating him senseless, she stood a fair chance.

"Hy-_ah_!"

She leapt skyward, speeding up towards Kosuke. She saw him readying _Akaibo_, and she sought to circumvent him. She danced through the air, going on the offensive, and baring her Shunko field outward against his suffocating spiritual pressure field. She used feints, but he never went for them, yet she wondered if she didn't need to. _Akaibo_ was but a stepping stone, a poor substitute for a shield from her attacks. Within a minute of engaging, she had landed two kicks and an elbow to the face, and after feeling so little give on her kicks, she felt sure that at least that last one might bruise later. Perhaps, she speculated as she landed a fourth hit under his shoulder blade from behind, the absurd amounts of spiritual pressure emanating from him, running through him, affected him in more ways than just the positive. It was highly possible that stealth wasn't the only reason he'd commissioned, or maybe even invented, a reiatsu-restraining device--it seemed that without it, his speed was suffering as well under its weight. Such occurrences weren't impossible in fighters that had more energy running through them than their bodies could reliably handle. Or perhaps her own performance had skyrocketed so high within her completed Shunko form that she simply had the edge she needed? Soi Fon liked that option.

Time passed, their bodies moved, and they flashed over different portions of destroyed city. Though he made many attacks and even landed a couple of hits with a fist and Akaibo, she didn't feel any dips in his pressure. Was she discouraging kido usage at this close a range? Surely he wouldn't discard it entirely, if she hadn't overestimated him?

She flashed, somersaulting over the red staff as it was swept across at her one-handed, and grabbed his free wrist as it swung out at her. Just as she was preparing to throw him, she felt it--that vanishing of the weight, as though she'd gone from moving through water to moving through air again, and her body moved before she could think. There was a homonka right across his sternum that she had left earlier, and it had remained there throughout his self-dividing antics. She used her free hand, her barbed shikai, and thrust it straight towards that crest, seeing it covered with a blue glow at the same time.

"_Yergh--!_"

_Bakudo..._

It hadn't been an attacking spell! Her _Suzumebachi_ hit the small blue orb of light centimeters before it made contact with the homonka, and she felt her entire arm flying backward, throwing her off-balance. For the fourth time, her coup-de-grace was thwarted.

"_Gugh!_"

Suddenly she was looking upward, registering pain as she spotted droplets of blood just a few feet in the air above her, her own failing hanging there for her to see--she was falling backwards, dazed and stunned, when the same foot that had swung up and hit her in the jaw was swung round, hitting her in the stomach. More blood left her mouth as, for a moment, she was carried on the rebel's limb, before being sent flying downward.

_Damn it_, she thought as several walls collapsed when she sped through them, leaving her to plow into a rooftop while her vision un-blurred, _I fell for his feint. He must've caught on, or maybe he knew the whole time...was that a repulsion spell? _

The pain was flowing throughout her body now. He had kicked her so hard that her war cry gale had faltered...here she lay, suddenly feeling the full effects of the fight. Even with her unparalleled tolerance for pain, she had to work to repress the urge to let out a rather pitiful groan.

"You really are going to push me that far...aren't you?" she wondered aloud. She struggled to one knee, then two, then onto her feet. Nigeki Kessatsu had, so far, only failed her. Her high speed abilities, while they granted her an advantage, weren't going to allow her to win. Hakuda was making progress, but against an opponent this durable, she wouldn't be able to count on wearing him down before he landed another vicious hit like that. So, she had one avenue left. One single thing left to her she was convinced that he had no answer for. He wanted to blast her to smithereens with a thunder cannon? She had her own thunder cannon, one that would explode with a ferocity shaming even the potent destructive kido he'd used so far.

As she got up, she realized that their battle had taken them higher into the air. Kosuke still remained two hundred feet above her, and about five hundred away, despite that she was now on top of one of the tallest buildings in the area. The only taller one she could see was directly adjacent, and she could see Kosuke through the hole he'd created in it. That changed swiftly as she activated Mukyu Shunko with her own battle cry, powerful winds engulfing her and restoring her to what they could. In the wake of the gale, the perforated building quickly collapsed, becoming rubble and offering her a completely unobstructed view. That'd benefit her, but probably also him, seeing as there was now nothing to hide her oh-so-flashy final attack.

"Bankai!" she shouted. "_Jakuhō Raikōben!!!_"

A flash of lightning engulfed her, taking form as the stinger missile she so hated. The ultimate, supreme form of a one-hit-kill. Even a powerful opponent like this would surely be blasted to smithereens once it hit, and it _would_ hit.

What was formerly a slit in her faceplate was now a small screen, showing the world before her with a wandering reticle, which settled on Kosuke and zoomed in. Within its sights, Soi Fon was pleased to see that Kosuke's look of mild confidence had been replaced with one of utter panic.

"_Are you crazy?!_" she heard him shout. "_What the **fuck** is that?! You can't shoot something like that at me!!!_"

Soi Fon's only answer was to lower the missile and take aim, initiating firing procedures.

"_Is that how far you're going to go to win?! Is that much overkill really necessary?!_"

"_YES!_" she shouted, and anything else he said was drowned out by the roar of the propulsion igniting. Soi Fon concentrated her Shunko, pushing all of it into a tight revolution around her right side and down her right arm. Not only would it keep her limbs safe in case the recoil was enough to break them, it would help her fight the backward push. She had been working on her form, but ultimately there was nothing that could truly defy the monstrous force that came with firing her bankai. 

He was definitely shouting _something_. A ringing in her ears, combined with the rush of wind in them as she flew backwards at high speed, prevented her from making out anything that was said. She hoped he wasn't begging. She didn't like it when her targets begged, and they were far past that point, anyways. Finally righting herself and digging her fingers into a stone surface she didn't care to identify, she clawed herself forward, looking up, and--what was that?

It was a blast of light, but not her stinger missile's explosion--it was a huge, golden column, extending from ground to sky. The bankai was still in flight, and was going to strike it dead-on. She watched, and everything went silent for only an instant. Then, everything was overcome with light. Bright, golden light that burned her eyes, forced her to shield them. Something was happening at the impact zone, something she couldn't see. And then--

** _\--BBBOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM--_ **

Even a supercell thunderstorm would be shamed by the noise created by her Jakuho Raikoben's explosion, but that wasn't what she was hearing. Not in the typical manner, anyway. Something was off about the sound--and when she looked, something was definitely off about the appearance as well. Her eyes were surely lying to her. Her stinger missile had detonated..._sideways_.

She couldn't make sense of it--the rush of fire and light and unholy explosive energy that was the irrefutable result of her bankai's activation and firing was not expanding outward in a spherical shockwave of death. It was instead expanding in a half-formed wave towards the south, decidedly away from the intended impact zone. All too soon, the explosion dissipated and cooled, leaving only a colossal amount of smoke in its way, none of which was able to hide the sight she saw and found so utterly incomprehensible--Kosuke Hikaru, standing there in the air, completely unharmed. She blinked rapidly, convinced she was not seeing reality right.

With nothing left, Soi Fon could only watch him speed down through the air towards her.


	20. Kazuō

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually have to warn for content matter, but this chapter does discuss and display eye trauma. So if that's not your thing, feel free to skip it.

"_Nngh..._"

The sound of footsteps was soft once Kosuke had landed. Despite preparing herself for a final blow, none came for her, at least not in the dramatic fashion she'd been expecting. His footsteps stopped short, and she looked up from the floor of the rooftop on which she'd collapsed from exhaustion. She could see him peering down at her, and she squinted. There was a faint light emitting from him, and underneath it, he looked radically different. His hair and line of stubble, formerly a bright red, were now glowing gold. The effect was rather like peering at the sun. His face was cool, with none of the panic in his face she'd seen before. She gritted her teeth, realizing he'd tricked her. Without even realizing it, she'd assured herself of victory and taken pleasure in it. What a fool she'd been to break her codes like that.

"What..." she panted, still not having totally caught her breath, but reeling from what just happened and determined to get an answer, "what the hell was that...what did you do...?"

There was a crunch next to her head, and she looked to the side, seeing _Akaibo_. It was different, however. The sleek red surface was now lined with gold ridges patterning its length, with the end that was half-buried in the rooftop covered in a gold wrap.

"My bankai, Rúyì Jīn Gū Bàng, is extremely heavy." he said. "I can rapidly change that weight in milliseconds, taking it from eight thousand kilograms to eight million, or down to just eight. You may have launched a tactical ballistic missile at me, but I struck your missile away with the force of a small asteroid."

_That explains why he could inflict such grievous damage on Lieutenant Kira by accident. With a bankai like that, his strength must be more than I ever imagined. He must be so used to immense weights that he didn't notice the effects of Wabisuke in time to account for them and restrain himself properly. That bankai... its powers remind me Ichimaru's...but that name is Chinese_, she realized. She'd never before heard of a zanpakuto answering to a name in a language other than Japanese. The closest she'd seen was, again, Ichimaru, who had a strange connection to his zanpakuto and was able to use several different release commands to unseal it. Was it just the fluke of a very powerful weapon?

"I'm sorry. But you've made it clear you'll take lethal action if it suits you. As the lives of the people acting out this rebellion under my command, on my behalf, are my responsibility...well, I can't allow you to just go 'Nigeki Kessatsu'-ing anyone you come across."

"Does that mean I'm an exception to the no-kill rule?" she spat, pulling herself up on one arm. No matter how much her body cried out from injury, stress, and exhaustion, she refused to simply roll over and die. She only wished...well, no. She'd never wish for help, as if she needed it. But even assuming she could pull off another missile, it would be useless without some way to keep him from destroying it again. How nice it would be to cage him up in one of Ushoda's Shijū no Saimon spells.

"No, but you _are_ an exception to the poisoning rule." Kosuke said, and she noticed the wakizashi still sheathed at the other side of his waist, where it hadn't left since she'd met him. "The purpose of fighting the captains isn't just because we want to prove our strength, it's because most of you are far too strong to succumb to the tactic used on weaker soul reapers. Your spirit energy would quickly dilute the caliber of paralyzing chemical we've manufactured, and you'd keep fighting. Even Rukia Kuchiki, a captain whose durability isn't her strong suit, was only taken down as quickly as she was due to massive quantities of the poison we use, far beyond the standard dose. In order for us to keep you down, we have to beat you down before delivering that dose. However, _you're_ a trained covert ops assassin. Intel told us that you had trained your body to resist almost any invading toxin through repeated exposures over the years, and even should you encounter something your body can't fight off, you have counter-poisons available. So I have to take an alternative measure to keeping you down."

There was silence for a moment, while she regained her breath, staring at the gold-rimmed staff in his hand.

"I've been brushing up on my anatomy, but I'm still not on Junzo's level, or even Kazuo's... I can try slashing the tendons in your arms and legs, but I don't know how well I can do that. Or I can break the bones in your arms and legs. Your choice, really. Either way, you're going to want to grit your teeth for it. I'll send up a signal for someone to come get you and take you to--"

She flashed, lunging for his throat, but she was easily batted away. _Oww_, she thought, before criticizing herself for even that weakness. She crashed through a railing lining a stairway. Pulling herself up, she saw Kosuke hop it and stroll towards her again. His spiritual pressure was crushing her, but she refused to stay down. She would not be flattened, even now.

"Broken bones it is."

She hated him. She swore to herself, that one day, she'd see him begging for mercy, and make sure that he'd receive none. She could only be thankful that no one was around to see her decisively defeated. His mercy was...insulting. Never before had she understood the Eleventh Division's ability to defy sense and crave a death in battle. Now though, she thought she'd prefer it to being beaten down and then spoken to so politely when spared. She saw him raise the staff as he walked up to her. She closed her eyes, recalling her pain tolerance trainings in the woods.

"...I really am sorry."

* * *

A light breeze blew over the two combatants' field. Aside from that, things were still, but in his mind, Shunsui was communicating with his Zanpakuto. At his shoulders, he felt the hands of Katen, his spirit, manifesting itself, unseen by the other man...hopefully.

_'Without Kyokotsu, I can't play Kageoni...'_

_'I can perform Kageoni well enough. You still have most of the other games at your disposal as well. Just be very careful.'_

_'Can we use bankai like this? You weren't always two separate spirits.'_

_'No. Without both of us responding to the call, we cannot put on the show. Separate we may be, but we are still in some ways an individual. Bankai requires both of us donating power.'_

_'Kyokotsu's not...gone for good, is she?'_

_'I can still sense her. She will need to be given time to repair and heal on her own, but until then, she will be out of commission. Kindly make sure the same fate doesn't befall me. Not only do I like preserving myself, but I doubt your ability to beat him with both of us, let alone only my help.'_

The 'him' across from them, Kazuo, stood still, watching them. Drawing on Katen's power, Shunsui located his own shadow, without looking away from him, and dropped the handle of Kyokotsu through it into the depths within, where she would remain for the rest of the fight. Following this, he held Katen with both hands, thinking back to Old Man Yama's lessons on kendo, but freed up his right hand again soon enough. Katen wasn't a single blade, and holding her like she was would only throw both of them off.

He lunged across the stretch between them, bringing his blade down with the intend to cut off Kazuo's head. No different than expected, his attack was blocked, his tachi's blade meeting the back of Kazuo's black-gloved hand and being deflected with a surprising amount of force.

_Cling! Cling! Cling! Cling!_

Each hit was blocked, even as Shunsui pressed forward one step at a time and Kazuo obliged him by taking steps back. The rebel didn't seem the least bit concerned as they felt out each other's speed and power. He swapped it up a little, trying from a few different angles, only to achieve similar results.

"It's not exactly sportsmanlike to handicap your opponent before the fight even begins," Shunsui commented in a pleasant tone, over the sounds ringing out of metal being struck.

"The best way to win a fight is before it even starts, if you ask me." Kazuo murmured with a smile on his face. "Besides, you didn't exactly strike me as the type of man to care about honor and fairness to begin with, Captain Commander."

"You might have me pegged there." Shunsui agreed, trying to bring the pommel of Katen upside Kazuo's jaw and failing. "But while that may be true of me, I'm not sure how well it would apply to the people you trapped in the Soul Palace." he said, taking careful note of what Kazuo was doing. So far, he had used his right arm, the one in the black glove, exclusively. He thought he might know why.

"I'd prefer this to be a matter strictly between the Rukon District citizens and the Seireitei military force," Kazuo answered, "not Seireitei's military force and however many humans, Arrancars, and Quincies they can scrounge up from the next town over to fight with them."

Shunsui moved very suddenly, tossing his tachi from his left hand to his right and swinging quickly. Yet another _clang!_ rang out, disappointing him. He had been sure that the gold-gloved left arm was weaker than the right, and he might still have been right, as he hadn't been fast enough--Kazuo was holding his blade between his fingers, having countered him again, but this time holding the blade tight. He frowned. If Kazuo was protecting his left side that vigilantly, did that mean his assumption was correct?

"Oh, hey," Kazuo drawled, garnering his attention, "I can do that, too."

The Captain Commander's single eye widened as its gaze flitted back to the hand holding his sword. Almost faster than his eye could catch, the gold stripes accenting the forearm had expanded, spreading to cover the whole glove in gold. The same thing happened on the arm hanging at his side, swapping the left and right gloves. Realization struck him, and he jerked backward and yanked his tachi away sharply, making distance. He looked down at Katen, a portion of the blade turned to gold.

_'Katen! Katen, can you hear me?!'_

_'I'm still here, Shunsui. Pay attention to the fight! Use my power!'_

He looked up, jolted to find Kazuo less than a foot in front of him. The Captain Commander flashed, and watched himself swing his blade, only for Kazuo to...not react? His sword was already in hand and coming down for the back of his neck, when he saw a blitz of movement. Shunsui gasped, realizing Kazuo had caught a hold of his wrist from behind--with his right hand, which was back to being encased in shiny black leather.

"Kageokuri?" Kazuo's voice was mild, as if questioning a friend's decisions. "That won't work on me. I happen to be very good at telling a counterfeit from the real thing."

The world turned a hundred and eighty degrees as Shunsui's whole body was lifted off the ground and flipped, landing hard on the ground on his back. A foot was brought down on his free arm, while his right wrist remained captured and held up.

"Your carelessness is going to get you killed one day. Per the rules of your Dharma Doll game, if I'd taken the time to look behind me just now, you'd have died instantly."

_Damn it all...he's faster than me, a lot faster, and he's perceptive, too...and with his ability to swap gloves in an instant, that rules out Irooni..._

Pressure was being placed on Shunsui's arm, and he didn't like where this was going. He grit his teeth, struggling, but feeling no give. He was strong, yes, but physical brute force had never been his style. Kazuo barely seemed to feel his resistance, and this guy didn't look quite as broad-shouldered as himself.

"I suspect that same carelessness is what lost you an eye in the Blood War. Excuse me, but you might should grit your teeth, this is going to hurt quite a bit."

Shunsui obeyed, drawing his tongue back and locking his teeth together.

_Crack!_

Shunsui shut his eyes tight, refusing to cry out. He had taken worse injuries without doing so, this wouldn't wring a sound from him. Nonetheless, his enemy had been right: that hurt like a _bitch_. His wrist was released, and his arm fell limp, dropping to the ground with an odd bulge around the elbow where the bones had been fractured, or perhaps separated. It also felt like his arm had been yanked out of its socket. Kazuo had the grace to get off of him, backing off and giving him space. Ignoring the pain, he rolled over onto his knees, breathing deeply. Well, that was another grievous hit to his chances in this fight. One sword, one hand, one eye, and no bankai. He spat, pulling himself to his feet and taking Katen into his left hand again, then wincing as he pulled his right arm inside the robe of his shihakusho where it could rest and the injury would hopefully not be exacerbated.

"Why don't," he panted, still reeling, "why don't we take a minute to talk, again?"

"Fine by me," Kazuo answered, and Shunsui saw him back up further still.

"What exactly would happen," he said, catching his breath and standing up straight, "if we were to surrender? Would the rebellion force leave?"

There was a wicked glint in Kazuo's eye that Shunsui didn't like.

"You, surrender? You don't have the right to surrender to us, though." he rasped, teeth white and gleaming. "The Gotei 13 are not the true problems with Soul Society. They are just the pillars holding up the corruption. That corruption stems from the governing body, the Central 46. We've chosen to fight you in order to display our strength, and make it clear that we won't tolerate being stepped on by the wealthy elite any longer. That we are capable of crushing you and _forcing_ change. After we've dealt with you, we will head for their building at the very center of Seireitei. Whichever one of us makes it there first will take them hostage and submit my demands, which will then be implemented as law, enacted under my guidance and upheld by the authority of any and all governing bodies from today forth."

Shunsui huffed. It seemed that he'd missed his chance to resolve things peacefully, if Kazuo's cold response to him at the beginning of the fight was to be taken as a hint. Or maybe Kazuo had simply intended to kill him from the beginning whether he was amenable to their demands or not. That seemed like it would be in line with this drive to 'prove their strength'.

"I doubt the bunch of crochety old men in there are going to listen to a word you say to them, even with knives at their throats." he advised, hoping to perhaps poke a hole in the rebellion leader's goal. But Kazuo just smiled and shrugged.

"I disagree. For starters, every member of the noble houses who would usually intervene in a process like the Central 46's 'absolute' authority are all behind a kido trap, no different than regular civilians now. But even assuming you're right, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. The original Central 46 were all slaughtered by Aizen, and it didn't pass me by how they were all promptly replaced and absolutely nothing about Seireitei changed whatsoever for it. So, if the current incarnation of the Central 46 won't listen to my demands, I'll kill them all, and you and I can go ahead and pick the next generation of them from the civilians we've all handily rounded up. I came here hoping to kill as little as possible, but if the job won't get done without murder, then murder I will."

That sent a chill up Shunsui's spine. He peered, locking eyes with Kazuo to try and detect any misgivings in him. He didn't find any. The rebel was meeting his gaze confidently. Was it him, or did he not seem to need to blink as often as he should? He felt the need to look away.

"We can go through them batch by batch until we find the one that makes the right choice." Kazuo said coolly. "I'm pretty sure that won't take long. But like I said, I don't think we'll need to go that far to begin with."

Shunsui took a deep breath, not sure what else there was to be said, but something was nagging at him. Before he could do more than open his mouth to speak, though, he'd been socked in it squarely, being sent flying backward. He flipped to his feet, wiping his mouth free of saliva and a little bit of blood. Damn, that had hurt. Felt like he'd loosened a tooth.

"No fair, I wasn't ready." he complained.

"Are you ready now?"

Shunsui didn't answer, sure that he wouldn't get the words out if he tried. Rather, he simply held Katen in front of him to ward off further attacks.

_Irooni is no go_, he thought, _and neither is Kageokuri or Dharma-san ga Koronda. All that's really left to me are Bushogoma, Takaoni, and Kageoni, and I doubt those will be enough for me to win._

"You don't look like much, down an eye. You were probably more handsome when you had both."

Shunsui blinked. That was out of left field. Unlike with Ane before him, he didn't feel like this was meant to be genuine flirting...or maybe it was, in which case, he didn't feel too good about it. Kazuo was still staring him right in the eye, a small smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

"You know, your preoccupation with my eyes are a little creepy." he said. "Mind not staring at the one I've got left?"

"Can't do that," rasped the rebel, the wicked glint returned, "can't keep my eyes off of it. Or my hands, for that matter."

Even having heard the clear warning, Shunsui was taken off-guard. One instant, Kazuo was standing there several meters away, and the next instant, Shunsui could only see fingers far too close to his eye, reaching...

"_Whoa!_"

He jumped back, skidding on the ground and leaning low, trying to understand how he had gotten himself inbetween Shunsui and Katen that fast, without even the sound of flash step to betray him. His reprieve wasn't long. He looked at Kazuo, who stayed still long enough for the Captain Commander to see him seemingly frozen with his black-gloved hand reaching out as if about to take hold of something small, before he was gone again.

_Fwooh, cling! Fwooh, cling!_

They engaged in a flash step chase. Shunsui didn't pay much attention to where he was going except 'away', crossing rooftop, road, grass, at one point swearing he stepped across sand. Kazuo stayed hot on him, reaching out for his face, and being kept at bay by Shunsui's broad swings. He was just focused on keeping him away from that vital area, not even trying to dispatch him. His blade, on the occasions it was deflected, bounced far back, making it difficult to prepare for the next lunge for his eye.

_Clang! Cling! Clang!_

A glinting piece of metal was chipped off of Katen as she made contact with Kazuo's gloved hand at the wrong angle. _Has he gotten stronger?_ He thought there was surely a tiny bit more force being applied behind these attacks. There was every possibility he'd just been holding back earlier, but somehow he didn't think so. It felt like his opponent's strength and speed were rising, by tiny, minute little amounts with each successive hit.

_This isn't good...I'm going to be overwhelmed sooner or later..._

Shunsui flashed back as far and as fast as he could, chanting a high-level bakudo spell as he did.

_Crgk._

His opponent was stopped, for now. Shunsui panted, realizing what had happened. His barrier, glowing blue around him, had been finished perhaps a nanosecond before Kazuo made contact...yet failed to block him entirely. He could see the rebel standing just beyond the barrier, arm extended, black fingers penetrating the field, which cracked and flaked around them. The tips of them were protruding into the captain's protective space. He waited, watching to see if spiderweb cracks expanded through his kido, but when Kazuo yanked his fingers free, all that remained was three holes with crumbling edges. Then, calmly, the rebel placed his left hand, wearing the golden glove, against the barrier.

Shunsui's eyes widened as the field was overcome, turning to gold in a wave spreading from the point of contact. It took just over a second for the entire thing to be transmuted into metal, metal he couldn't see past.

"Hado #90!" he shouted, panicking as, with a loud crunching and tearing sound, the back wall of the barrier behind him was torn off, "Kurohitsugi!"

Shunsui saw darkness forming around himself, but did not stick around to see what became of Kazuo. Something brushed past his hair as he sank down into the shadows, and he realized he'd been an instant away from getting impaled. A yell, followed by a groan of pain and several uncomfortable dripping sounds, sounded from above. He looked up, but obviously would not see anything given he was staring at the lightless inside of the black coffin spell. Moving, he slid to the side until he saw sunlight above and could surface a safe distance away from the spell. He did so, and watched it break away and dissolve, leaving nothing to hide the image of Kazuo on one knee, bleeding from several stab wounds. He imagined bruises would be blossoming soon, if he'd put enough power into the spell to trigger its gravitational pressure effects.

A chortle came to his lips. He shouldn't laugh. But he was happy to have finally gotten the drop on this man after fighting a steadily worsening fight for fifteen minutes. He wasn't the only one laughing, albeit he quickly stopped after realizing that. Kazuo was chuckling to himself.

"I guess," he said, picking himself up while Shunsui watched and dusting himself off, "it was probably arrogant of me to assume I'd be able to dominate the Captain Commander without taking a few hits in return."

"Your wounds don't seem to be stopping you from getting up." Shunsui said suspiciously. He hadn't been able to get a good feel for his enemy's spiritual pressure since meeting him, though it had to be at least as high as his own judging by the combat performance so far. He seemed determined to keep it under wraps, so it wasn't going to give him any hints as to how much more damage he could take before going down. Kazuo did not answer him, but simply smiled, so he continued on: "You know, you've talked a lot about righteous matters, but I'd say you're using those to hide the fact that you're a real sadist."

Kazuo took this in stride. "Me, a sadist? I've never hid that fact. I just like to think I've found a constructive outlet for it. Now, if you don't mind me analyzing you in turn, I'd have to say your ideas of right and wrong are warped ways of hiding a disturbing lack of empathy for someone with so cordial a reputation. Your murder of Coyote Starrk proves that much."

Shunsui narrowed his eyes, again disagreeing with this assessment of him. His ideas of right and wrong were...well, he didn't see eye to eye on a lot of folks about those, but the proof of that was hardly Starrk. It was more like _Aizen_, given the fuss raised when he'd decided he needed the help of the self-proclaimed 'god' to save the worlds from Yhwach. But he certainly wouldn't agree with the criticism being thrown at him _now_. And as a matter of fact...

"Whadda you know about Coyote Starrk? You weren't there at the battle of Karakura."

"I was," Kazuo responded, "you just didn't notice me."

The captain swallowed, trying to avoid a creeping sense that he might be in over his head. Was that true? He had met Starrk the same day he'd killed him, and Mayuri and his scientific resources had been focused on Hueco Mundo at the time. Was this guy some sort of spy? Exactly how much did he know about...well, anything? The hairs on the back of his neck were prickling all of a sudden.

"Well, I'll tell you something I _did_ notice," he retorted, "which is your strength increasing every time you touch my blade. Very...Quincy-like of you."

There was no response from Kazuo, so he continued.

"You appear to have multiple powers. If I could ask it of you, I don't suppose you're going to _explain_ your abilities, but...maybe you'd like to confirm what I've found out?"

Kazuo's mouth twitched into a smile again. The fingers on his black-gloved hand flexed.

"I'll oblige you, if you think you can get those answers while keeping that pretty eyeball in your head."

The two of them flashed at the same time, and the chase was on again. Only this time, Shunsui didn't sit there waiting for his sword to be chipped away at, nor for the other man to start cannibalizing his spirit energy anymore. He quickly cast the Tsuzuri Raiden spell on Katen's blade, watching it alight with an electric current. Kazuo, who so far had exhibited no powers that didn't rely on direct contact, took the hint. It didn't make things _easy_, but it took some pressure off of him. He could swing his blade without being thrown off-balance by the other man. He took broad, clean sweeps, forcing Kazuo to keep distance while trying to get around the sword without touching it.

"So let me see if my findings so far are correct," Shunsui said, dodging a jab and a swipe and flashing two rooftops away, then past a garden, "the gold glove you're using transmutes anything it touches into solid gold, rendering it soft and easily torn apart, even if it was originally quite tough. However, you can't use it on living flesh, or else you'd have tried by now."

There was a rush of leaves as the two of them blew past a tree, the captain using it to trip up Kazuo and throw him off, as he'd gotten a little too close for comfort with that last lunge.

"The black glove, on the other hand, is a power weapon with great speed and strength--and whatever is too tough for you to crack with that advantage won't stay that way, once you work the gold glove's magic on it. Furthermore," he continued, "you've been stealing minute amounts of my spirit energy each time you've made contact, powering yourself up even further."

"The essentials are correct," Kazuo agreed with him as they sped over a deserted watermelon patch, "but one addition I'd like to make: speed and strength aren't Mammon's primary applications."

Time seemed to freeze as Shunsui's swipe with Katen was stopped cold. Staggering, he realized he couldn't stumble away--the hand within the black glove was locked around his sword wrist, and he couldn't move the other arm. For a moment, he thought that Kazuo might not have thought this through, as he didn't seem to be throwing him into a wall or attacking him with his weaker, but still free left hand. Then, he saw movement.

_\--!!!_

"_Nng--_"

"_Gaghyeh--damn it, let go!_"

The fingers on the hand with the black glove, holding his wrist, had rapidly stretched and twisted, elongating and winding down the length of his arm alarmingly fast. Like snakes, but far too fast, far too precise, until they were curving up through the air in front of his face, fingertips sharpened and aiming straight for his eye. Shunsui had, in the heat of the moment, done the only thing that made any sense: leaned forward and bitten down on them, _hard_.

"Rrrrgh."

Kazuo was clearly in a lot of pain, which was refreshing given the previous lack of reaction to being _impaled from several angles_. Perhaps it was shock and outrage that had him looking so bent out of shape. Shunsui didn't intend to let go, though, too afraid of what would happen to his eye--or other parts of him--otherwise.

"Hado #11: Tsuzuri Raiden!"

His vision flashed white as he experienced an electric current running through his body through the nerves in his teeth. This didn't make him let go--quite the opposite in fact, his jaws locked together and wouldn't let go even if he'd wanted to--until the current subsided and his mouth fell slack. Both men fell to the ground. Shunsui was the first one to gather his faculties, in time to stand up straight and kick Kazuo in the stomach with all his might, sending him hurtling off through the air to crash into a tree, hitting the ground on his unbitten palm, shaking the other off with a look on his face that promised retribution.

He could only grin. _That's what you get, kid_. He watched as Kazuo stood up shakily, looking first at him, then at his arm bearing the black glove, which had smoothed over with unnatural speed. There was quiet for a moment as both men took the time to breathe deeply and recover themselves._  
_

"Pickpocketing was always my favorite way of stealing to survive," the rebel remarked, "and it's always been Mammon's favorite, too."

Hey, if his opponent wanted to do some reminiscing, that was fine by him. A moment to catch his breath and try to formulate a plan was appreciated. And as for 'Mammon'...he'd said that name earlier. It surely referred to the black glove on his arm. But if that was the case, what was the name of--

"Midas, though...its ability to transmute objects to gold was invaluable. I had an unlimited supply of gold coins I could use or sell as often as I liked. I thought, once I had this shikai, that I could single-handedly eliminate poverty in the Rukongai. But, unfortunately, that isn't how it works. Objects transmuted to gold only stay that way for as long as the shikai's active, and turn back once the sword is resealed."

Shunsui blinked.

"That _is_ an unfortunate stipulation." he agreed. "I guess it sort of answers a question I hadn't thought to ask. I did seem to remember thinking you had somehow weaponized a philosopher's stone."

"It's not a philosopher's stone. It's a realization. My zanpakuto's way of forcing me to realize that true relief from the life we live is only going to come from structural change, not cheat codes."

Shunsui did not answer. Truthfully, he didn't have any sort of answer. Poverty wasn't a problem he'd ever had to deal with, living a life as close to the people in power as he always had. He knew things were bad out in the Rukongai, but surely a violent rebellion wasn't the way to fix things? His stomach squirmed. He knew of several charities, the proper way to provide relief to needing people, but...well...

He saw Kazuo look back up at him and meet his eyes.

"Are you prepared to spend the rest of your life blind?"

Well, that definitely took the edge of the awkwardness. Give him threats any day.

"Not really, no." he answered. "Unohana's a good enough healer to regrow an eye, and if it happens that she isn't, I can get Akon to make me a new one."

Kazuo sighed, not even bothering to look annoyed with the obvious dodging of whatever consequences he'd intended.

"You were an alright opponent...not the most fun one I've ever had, though. You should at least play one more game with me before I put you down."

Shunsui definitely didn't like the sound of that. He watched as Kazuo extended both arms, readying something. Sensing a nudge from Katen, he looked at their shadows on the ground, deciding to finally take advantage of a moment where both of them were still. He didn't have any intention of allowing this man to use a bankai, if in fact that was what he was about to do. Regardless of what it was, it sounded like this was his last chance to end the fight in his favor. Naturally, the rebel leader was ready, and deftly dodged the blade as it rose up from his shadow on the ground, leaping up into the tree that he'd been kicked against earlier. The Commander didn't withdraw the sword, instead changing the angle to slice through the tree itself, which quickly topped. He tracked his enemy with his eyes, now finding him on a rooftop. He pulled out his sword, ready to move it through space to the new shadow beneath his enemy's feet, but Kazuo had moved first. Something seemed to shoot out of the fingers of his left hand, pointing down towards his feet.

Suddenly, Shunsui couldn't see. A wall of yellow had risen all around him, conforming to his body, before closing around him and sealing over his head, leaving him in total darkness.

_Shit--he can even turn the **air** into solid gold?_

He was stuck, but as he'd reasoned before, gold was a weak metal, and a thin coating of it wasn't going to stop him. He moved his sword arm, and surprisingly found that the gold moved around him, like a weak foil, tearing around his limb. But he couldn't breathe, he needed to get this stuff off of his face--he reached up and tore at the thin metal covering his eyes and nostrils, ripping it away--

"Bankai," he heard in the deep rasp of the rebel leader's voice, "_Don'yoku no A__kuma._"

Shunsui ripped his way out of the transmuted air, in time to stare ahead of him in the street, as Kazuo had retaken the spot in front of the tree. What he saw was the man throwing his gloves, both of them now a solid, shiny black, down on the ground. Of their own accord, the gloves padded forward as though worn by an invisible person walking on all four limbs, before the black leather expanded, grew, slid over an invisible form like liquid, and revealed that it wasn't leather--it was flesh. Just as he was stepping out of his little gold foil coccoon, Shunsui saw the true form of Kazuo's zanpakuto: a large, long, muscular being.

Truthfully, he could only say it reminded him of the asauchi he'd seen within the Soul Palace, in the chambers of Ouetsu Nimaiya--except rather than white-skinned, it was entirely black. A muscular humanoid, completely devoid of any hair along its body, bearing no facial features whatsoever except blank eyes, which glistened as black as midnight. It was hunched over on long limbs, its fingers splayed out like spiders, far too long for its hands. It sat back on its haunches, and Shunsui saw that it had no genitals despite vaguely resembling a male human. Even low to the ground, its head came up to Kazuo's shoulder. Shunsui felt more than wary, he felt afraid. This bankai seemed like a manifestation of nothing at all, anonymity given form. It was bare of detail, yet it had a striking figure that told of ill intent. Shunsui brought his sword up, but before he could do more than hold it in front of himself defensively, the demon vanished, so quickly Shunsui couldn't track its movement.

"The game has just started."

Shunsui readied himself, awaiting an attack. Kazuo didn't disappoint, removing the short sword held at his side for the first time, and using shunpo to cross the gap. Shunsui kicked out with his foot, swinging it to the left, and...to his surprise, he felt it hit, and felt give.

_Wait a minute--is his flash step slower?_

_CRASH!_

Kazuo slammed straight into the wall of a nearby house, which crumbled around him. Shunsui watched warily as the wall fell out and he fell behind it, and then--

_!!!_

"Whoa!"

The Commander both brought his sword up and leapt back, feeling a _clang!_ and seeing another chip of gold go flying off of Katen's blade. He saw a flash of black out of the corner of his eye, but couldn't focus on it at the moment. The instant the enemy had fallen out of sight, he had reappeared right in front of Shunsui. If it was flash step, it was far faster than even his previous usage of it was. He'd barely had time to react when Kazuo was in front of him, already swinging his blade.

It was another chase. Shunsui flashed back and forth across the street, pursued by the rebel, who he didn't dare take his eyes off of. There was something about the smile playing on Kazuo's lips that he really, really didn't like. His arm, still folded within the cloth of his shihakusho, was still protesting, making focus more difficult than it needed to be. He finally flashed up on top of a house, descending past the other side while still not taking his eyes off of the rebel, and--

"Ah?"

The captain swerved, barely dodging a blade aimed for his ribs. A bizarre sort of series of afterimages had occurred as he'd fallen past the wall of the house, revealing the rebel just before he went for a strike. At the same time, there had been another flit, another flicker of black, this time out of the corner of his left eye. How was he doing this?

"Back _off!_"

Shunsui successfully caught Kazuo in the face with the pommel of his tachi--which felt good--before kicking him back into the wall where he fell onto one knee. Taking the moment to catch up to his worries about that demon, he whirled on his feet, only to find Kazuo in front of him, and stumbled back as a sword was thrust upward at him, cutting him on the shoulder.

_He's everywhere I look--is he just that fast? What am I missing here?_

The answer came as Shunsui stumbled backward, and bumped into something with no give, something solid enough to rebuff him forward a pace. Head bowed, Shunsui caught an instant's sight of Kazuo, laying on the ground in front of him, peering up at him as though he'd been laying there the whole time. Shunsui whirled around, but again, all he saw was Kazuo, standing there like he hadn't moved a muscle. Then, he felt something grab his hair and yank.

"Wargh!"

The most curious thing happened. Shunsui was lifted off the ground, unable to contain a yell at being dragged through the air in an arc by his ponytail. It was all too fast to process the first time, and not much better the second time, but he saw it again. As he was swung, he saw Kazuo in front of him, seeming to create after-images as he moved through space, keeping in front of him even during rapid movement, even as he was turned on the axis of his hair a hundred and eighty degrees, up and over what he could only assume was the shoulders of the demon from earlier, he saw the ground coming up ahead of him, and Kazuo laying on his back on the pavement, waiting for him again.

"_Aaaagh!_"

The blade pierced Shunsui straight through, breaking through the flesh of his shoulder blade on the other side of him. He was laying atop the other man, who had run him through from below with one hand while holding him up by the other. Shunsui had reached about the limit of his pain tolerance, wondering if he'd cut through a lung, and was no longer able to contain cries of pain. No sooner had the howl died in his throat than the blade was pulled back until it slipped from his body, ripping yet another one out of him. As he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, a foot met his stomach and he was kicked off, flying through the air again and landing on his back.

He turned over to his side, cradling himself only for a second before snapping out of things. He couldn't just give in. If he were to be torn to shreds and what finally made him give was pain, the memory of Old Man Yama and Jushiro would never let him rest. Pride and promise carried him back onto his knees, where he opened his eyes to look forward onto the street. Naturally, he saw the rebel standing there, blade in hand. Before he could resolve to do anything else, though, something invaded his line of sight--several somethings, all of them long and thin and black.

_!!!_

Shunsui swung his tachi behind him instinctively, spurred to action by raw fear. The fingers that had been sliding along his face and reaching for his eye socket vanished. Ahead of him, that small smile was playing on Kazuo's face, before blossoming into the wicked grin so typical of him.

The Commander pushed himself to the limit of his speed, simply moving forward. He sped right past Kazuo, only for the man to appear ahead of him by a few feet, where he was passed by again. Shunsui turned onto the widest street nearby, simply running as fast as he could and trying to keep as much of his surroundings within view as possible. Each time he passed the rebel, who stood there doing nothing but look at him, he appeared again in front of him, as if he'd been there when Shunsui had blinked, even though he was holding his eyes open to the point they watered.

He didn't get to run long. An immense weight crashed into him from behind, before he could figure out the variables running through his head. At the last instant, he turned, making sure to land on his good arm to prevent further damage to his broken one. Arms were holding him, legs were binding him. A limb was moving up, circumventing his struggling, reaching for his face again, and he felt that gripping fear again.

"Hado #90: Kurohitsugi!"

The creature wrapped around him that refused to show its face vanished, its weight gone, as the black walls began to form around the two of them and ready their impaling spikes. Shunsui allowed the spell to continue forming only long enough for him to scramble to his feet, dispelling it before it could finish what would end up being a suicidal attack.

Ahead of him, there was the usual. He thought he had a good idea of what was going on now. But what was disturbing to him was that he couldn't pick up the creature created by Don'yoku no Akuma--his sensory device disguised as an eyepatch was still working just fine, and was only picking up Kazuo's reiatsu. So far, he had not heard anything from the creature, not been able to get a good look at it in action, and only knew that it was very, very strong. And, if it was anything like its owner, blindingly fast. Attacks didn't seem to be slowing the rebel's advance, and he was clearly toying with him. He didn't think he had any games at his disposal that could win this fight for him--maybe Irooni? Now that Kazuo's arms weren't wrapped in gold and black? It could work, given they were both wearing large amounts of black...He could land the hit with maximum damage. And he didn't imagine that whatever powers were possessed by Don'yoku no Akuma, that transmutation was apart of them. Or maybe he was just making an ass of himself.

It was worth a shot.

"Black!" he called out, lunging forward with shunpo. There was a clang of metal, and as he'd suspected, Kazuo had used his spare sword to block the attack. Eh, it would've been nice. But this offered him the chance to see something. He pressed forward, entering a blade lock with the other man, pushing against him to see if he was stronger. Or at least, that was the impression he hoped to give. He was really checking the reflection in both blades, trying to find a way to look behind him.

_There it was._

"Hado #32: Ōkasen!" he cried, pointing his hand behind him as a golden flame erupted within it, blasting a beam behind him. There was a terrible noise, simultaneously high-pitched and baritone, that violated his ears. Even though he knew it was just a zanpakuto, a chill went up his spine; it really could pass for an actual demon. His eyes were locked on Kazuo though, who looked shocked and angry.

"Mammon!"

Shunsui broke the blade lock and swiped at Kazuo's midsection, managing to get a small cut in at the edge of his tachi even though Kazuo had stepped back. A spurt of blood hit him in the face as the Irooni rules magnified the damage from the tiny graze into a vast wound. Kazuo was staggering back, but he didn't have long to celebrate--something hit him in the right side, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying. He closed his eyes, feeling himself float through the air for too many seconds before skidding on the road, sure that a rib or two had been broken. It seemed 'Mammon' had decided on a fierce retaliation. Struggling to get up, he opened his eyes, and found a furious rebel leader striding towards him, soaked in his own blood.

_Damn...he's really tough. I thought between my Kurohitsugi earlier and my Irooni just now, I might be able to put him down. There's no way he's even half as tough as Starrk... If I could've just landed a deeper cut, I'm sure I could've snatched a victory. Guess I underestimated his durability._

But he wasn't done. He may not be able to win, but he could still flee with his eye intact. He had a place even they couldn't follow him, right?

...Right?

As he sank into his own shadow, he was immediately proven wrong.

"_Aaagh!_"

A blade pierced his other shoulder, severing tendons in his arm and coming out the other side. Impaled on the blade, he couldn't flee, and he could no longer raise his arm to defend himself. He saw them at the edges of his vision again, the spider-like fingers, coming for his eye. One hand held his jaw closed, keeping him from incanting a spell again, and the other was seeking the prize, and he couldn't stop it this time.

Shunsui's vision went black as the fingertips stretched and flattened, slipping between his ocular plate and his eyeball, curling around it and sharpening to snip the optic nerve. He saw nothing, but felt immense pain, the digits widening to crack the ocular plate so the eye could be removed more easily.

Deprived of his eye, he could only listen to Kazuo's voice, feeling the slight lifting sensation that told him that his hold on the shadow void of Kageoni was no more and that he'd resurfaced to the concrete above. The sword was removed, and his jaw was released, but he didn't make a sound as he fell forward onto his face.

"I take back what I said about you, Captain Commander. When you're backed against a wall, you play a pretty mean game."

He said nothing in answer, wondering if he would be left to bleed out. There was a shuffling of footsteps, and a noise rather like velvet or silk sliding across flesh. Pain shot through his leg as he was cut again, a shallow wound. He then heard two blades being resheathed. Then the rebel spoke again.

"I'm going to go back to the SRDI and get myself fixed up before moving on. That toxin I just put into you should keep you lying on the ground, even if someone comes by and treats your wounds. I'll assume you aren't in such bad shape you're going to die, but if you are, you'll need to say so. Here, I'll fire up the spell."

There was a pause, and the sound of a throat being cleared.

"Bakudo #77: Tenteikura. Go ahead, speak. I'm beaming this to the whole of Seireitei."

He recognized the sound of rushing wind. Shunsui spat, clearing his own throat before speaking as clearly as he could. His face was sticky where his eye socket had bled onto the ground.

"Attention all officers of the Gotei 13. Your Captain Commander has been defeated. If a capable officer from the Fourth Division could make their way west, I'd appreciate it." He stopped for a second, spitting out more blood. "Otherwise, all captains not currently engaged in battle are to converge on the Central 46 building in the center district. I repeat, converge on the Central 46 building and expect heavy resistance. That is all."

The sound of rushing wind quieted down, replaced by the sound of footsteps leaving the area.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding Kosuke's bankai, its Japanese name, and the one that it first answered to and is technically its "true name", is 金色の棒 (_Kin'irobō_, "Gold-Rimmed Staff"). While there are zanpakuto in later fics that answer to non-Japanese names due to unique quirks and differences in the forgery process used to create them, this one is not one of them. Kosuke simply has such a close relationship with his zanpakuto that it responds to its name in Kosuke's first language. Considering the literary figure he and his weapon are designed after, it felt only proper to call it by its Chinese name at least once in the story, which is fitting as his opponent Soi Fon (correct name 砕蜂 Suì-Fēng, "bee" or "hornet"), is most likely Chinese in origin herself.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This marks the end of 'Phase One' of the Rukongai Rebellion. What follows will be an Interlude segment, showing what the lieutenants and officers being treated at the infirm are up to and them going on the offensive against the rebels, plus more of Kenpachi helping Kukaku. At the end of the Interlude, Phase Two begins, and the fic runs through its events to the end.


End file.
